Kim Possible, Endings and Beginnings
by Fabius Maximus
Summary: A story branching off of DoofusPrime's "Life at the Top."   This is going to be in some respects a bleak story. It is going to be a bleak story by *my* standards.  You have been warned.
1. Chapter 1

Kim Possible- Endings and Beginnings.

I do not own Kim Possible or other related characters.

* * *

Now:

One moment, space was empty. Then, dozens of ships appeared. Unlike the Lowardians, there was no shower of high energy particles to announce their presence. These ships were far more advanced than that.

_All ships have entered the target system, Eldest._

_Good. What awaits us?_

The voices were carried over a network, fast as thought. The intelligences speaking didn't need anything as mundane as voice, after all, their minds being contained in positonric and quantum based housings.

_A very heavy concentration of Lowardian battle sats. They are arranged in a standard blockade orbit around the third planet...but they are very densely packed._

_AlienExpert?_

_It is...unusual for the Lowardians to leave like this. Normally blockades are a preparation for invasion, but I detect no Lowardian ships in system. _

_Theory?_

_Something has disturbed or frightened them. I-Hold! A transmission from the blockade._

_Let us see it._

Moments later, the crewmembers saw the image of a Lowardian commander.

"I am Worl'rd," He said, eyes slightly dilated. "Leave this world. Do not attempt to breach the blockade. It is not for our sakes, but your sakes. This world has been touched by Abomination. If you attempt to land, the drones will destroy you- a greater mercy than what you would find on the surface."

_Interesting. That word, "Abomination," sounded different._

_It is a very old word Eldest. The Lowardians are mostly a secular empire now, but the word comes from their pre-space days. To use it... they were _very_ frightened. _

_Hmmm... Can you scan the world, Fleetmaster?_

That worthy, currently named Fleetmaster (names changed with duties, after all, what was the point of a name that stayed the same? You changed after all. Only one being had a single name- the Eldest and Creator.), paused for several hundredths of a second.

_Nothing. There are no active power sources on the planet. Some examples of non-Lowardian technology in the high orbits, here and here," _The images were displayed for all. _But they show no signs of power generation- I deem them to be dead. They were too small for much in the way of industry or habitation in any case- likely communications and scientific devices. This world did _not_ seem to have an advanced space technology._

_Save for one case, you are right,_ the Eldest mused. The others remained silent. The Eldest had certain quirks, but It would explain Itself in good time.

Fleetmaster continued, _Sensors indicate that the level of industrial pollutants in the air are indicative of a primitive technology, still largely petrochemical based. From the levels of pollutants remaining and the size of the urban population centers, I would state that most industrial processes ceased or started to severely decline about one hundred rotations of the planet around its primary ago._

_Understood. AlienExpert, is it possible for us to penetrate the blockade without triggering the defenses._

_Of course, Eldest. I have already subverted their computer systems. They are only Lowardian. Shall I destroy them?_

_No. If the Lowardians realize the blockade has been penetrated, they might... act rashly. _

_True. They do tend to that._

_We will deploy probes. I will go._ Six others agreed to accompany the Eldest, including AlienExpert- though "Accompany" was a misnomer. Their primary intelligence would remain onboard, linked by thruspace communicators. Seconds later, six projectiles, were launched, falling past the blockade satellites, the few dead research stations, including one with a mummified monkey onboard, and fell into the atmosphere. Morphing into tear drops of silvery material, they fell, ignoring the heat of their reentry and then same to a gentle stop on a hill before a ruined metropolis.

They quickly adopted forms, whatever the individual sentience found most effective. The Eldest for some reason chose bipedal locomotion, while the others used the more effective counter gravity systems.

No voices greeted them, save for birds and the rustling of small animals. No fires burned in the age ruined city below.

_No signs of electronic or for that matter, any other evidence of sentient life. _ AlienExpert was curious. _This is quite unusual. It appears that the world has suffered an extinction level event, yet there is none of the damage that usually accompanies such an event. _

_Nanoweapons?_

_Unlikely. I have been running scans and even self-disassembling weapons rarely remove all evidence of their effect. Ours might, but we do not use such things. _

_True, _The eldest agreed. After all, while they had the capability to destroy most any other species in the known universe, or conquer them, why bother? Their needs were provided for, and what they found interesting in other life forms could not be taken by conquest. Those hostile races, such as the Lowardians, they avoided- there were vast amounts of matter in the gulfs between stars where organics did not venture, and matter and energy were all they needed to be quite content.

_Let us consider. _Moments later, the individual sentiences had merged into a fusion. The group mind thought and a few microseconds later, separated again.

Consensus was reached.

_The fate of this planet demands further investigation. We shall separate and examine individual artifacts. If any living members of the formerly dominant species can be found, we shall question them. _

With that, six of seven forms separated, quickly heading to their selected zones, leaving the Eldest alone, standing on the hill, looking down upon the dead city.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter II, Cultural Autopsy I

* * *

Lifewatcher had been created a few light years from an exploding star, and had spent Its first few years observing the development of primitive life on a world far distant, where the bursts of gamma rays and other radiation from that self same star had started the process that might one day result in sentient life.

So it wasn't surprising that Lifewatcher had become interested in the course of life- and death.

Its form, a floating ball, occasionally throwing off a nanite probe, or picking something up for analysis via absorbtion, floated through a large city established on the coast amid high mountains.

Stopping, it looked at yet another statue.

Or yet another broken statue. They seemed to come in three general designs. A female of the dominant species, a male, or the two together. All built within a year, dozens, hundreds of them, on every street, in every park.

But all broken. All shattered, and as far as Lifewatcher could tell, shattered over a _very_ short period.

There were a variety of inscriptions by them. Lifewatcher paused in surprise, and then opened a link.

_AlienExpert? I have yet to receive a full download of the primary languages. _

The answer swiftly came back .

_I have not yet completed my analysis. _

_Oh? The language is that complex?_

_No. It appears that most of the archives on this planet have been, ah, destroyed. _

_Interesting. Over a short period?_

_The majority of the destruction appears to have started about one hundred rotations ago- but it continued for a few decades after that. _

_War?_

_No. Individual, small scale, large scale, but it was not war. It was directed, on a local basis, but I can find no similarity in methodology. Some archives have been burned, some were thrown open to the elements- not only that, but this apparently includes museums. _

A moment passed and Lifewatcher could see through AlienExperts sensors. A vast building, burned and open to the elements, display cases shattered, their contents long sense destroyed by the actions of the inhabitants or by the workings of wind and weather.

_Ah. _A pause. _I see the statues are there as well._

_They are everywhere, as far as I can tell. While I cannot give you a full translation of the languages, I believe I can tell you what the names are._

_Drakken, is the male's name. Shego is the females. _

While they were talking, Lifewatcher left the city and rose up to the summit of one of the mountains. The remains of a great statue were there, evidently demolished by explosives. Amid it's rubble was another statue, evidently the fragments of an older structure, demolished to give way for the statue of Drakken.

_This other figure. It appears to have been destroyed to make way for the Drakken. A religious conflict?_

_Possibly._ A new 'voice' intruded. Navigator opened up its sensors and all three, and the rest of the sentiences on earth and on the fleet say a large building, bench like seating, shattered and charred, a high vaulted ceiling partially open to the elements. At the end, defaced with what looked like blows from some bladed device, there was a wooden carved statue of Shego and Drakken.

_Interesting. All over the world._ AlienExpert said.

_More interesting is this._ Navigator lifted out of the building, and floated over the small town, touching down _behind_ the building. _Do you see this carving? _

_It is the correct size to be placed...I see, just as here, it was discarded in favor of the newer statue. _Lifewatcher said. Professionally, it continued, _What is the significance of its mounting on the structure behind it?_

_I am uncertain._ Navigator said, _When I saw it, I deployed other sensors, but most examples appear to have been destroyed to make way for the statues of the two newer individuals... and most structures of this type have been destroyed so completely that it will require a far more indepth survey to reconstruct their contents. _

_The spikes through the palms of the hand are certainly decorative. _AlienExpert commented. _I cannot see how the soft tissue of a living example of this species would withstand the pressure of its weight. _

_Agreed. The plant matter around its head is also interesting- in reality that would cause a great deal of discomfort. _Lifewatcher paused. _Navigator, AlienExpert, do you have any idea what this being might have been called?_

_None as yet._ Navigator said. _I will continue my investigations. _

_Obviously a religious icon of some import._ AlienExpert concluded, _Orbital sensors, indicate that nearly all settlements on this continent have not one, but many structures of this nature. And yet all were converted over to the newer...religion?_ That last was tentative.

_Maybe. But if so, why was it not replaced by the older religion once the new religion fell from grace?_ As it spoke, Navigator moved into the street, one tendril touching a shattered statue that appeared to have been destroyed by some form of chemical explosive. _That is generally the case. No religion I can recall in our data bases would fall so completely so fast, and yet have no successors- or no return to the older religion. _

_It appears to not simply be that religion. _Starwatcher stated as it contributed to the Link. An image appeared- another shattered statue of the two, this one in a great plaza. _From the script I have found, this region had another religion, script, and was in many respects likely quite independent from the region you are examining. _Moments passed as Starwatcher used reconstructed a simulation of what had been there before. The great statue (well one-half, everything above the waist of the pair having been destroyed), vanished but the black stone of which it had been constructed now moved into a new configuration, a large cubic structure. _Analysis indicates that this stone was quite a bit older than most recent structures. _

_As were many of the structures holding this figure. _Navigator said. _Interesting. Evidently old, and world wide cultural icons were overthrown... very quickly. _

_Within a single rotation._ AlienExpert confirmed. _That appears to be the date of all the new statues._

_And then they vanished. Were over thrown in what looks like a spontaneous world wide demonstration of rage. A rage that also struck museums, libraries... And yet did nothing to restore the old order. Very interesting. _

_Yes. _AlienExpert agreed, _We should focus on finding evidence of what killed them. However active they were in destroying information , it makes sense that at some point, data would be missed, and if all the inhabitants were dead..._

_True. _Navigator agreed. _I will commence to look for regions protected from the elements, though after 100 rotations, even such regions might find themselves badly degraded. _

_I agree. _

_AlienExpert, I have discovered something else of interest. _Starwatcher interjected a comment.

_Yes?_

_This city- observe the damage._ The others observed a city square, the buildings shattered by chemical and kenetic weapons. A probe had excavated a trench in the time accumulated soil, revealing skeletons in some form of battledress, all injured.

_A conflict?_

_It would appear so, at first glance, but no. Or at least not a conflict like you are thinking- _a trendril extended from Starwatcher's body and indicated an armored structure. _That is a set of cameras, embedded in an armored housing. The dead-_ a close up appeared_, also had similar sensors attached to them. _

_A game?_

_Possibly. A game with deadly weapons, if so. _Starwatcher said.

_And no burial of the dead. That is unusual among organic species. _Lifewatcher pointed out. _For that matter, it appears that even minor injuries went untreated,_ it continued as a probe revealed a skeleton, one leg shattered. _This individual may have suffered more injuries that are not detectable now, but even so, with their technology, care should have been possible._

_That is unusual for this species, evidently. There is evidence of older interments of the dead, with some ritual. _AlienExpert showed images from probes- large fields with what appeared to be memorial stones.

_Interesting. Hold on that one._ Navigator said.

_Ah. A number of the stones have been destroyed, and the containers of the dead exhumed. _An order was given, and the probe descended and started to clear the underbrush. The field had been torn up, another one of the statues, this one evidently destroyed before it had been completed. The Field was plowed and torn, containers laying this way and that, in some cases shattered, skeletal remains in various forms of tattered uniforms spilling out of them. The beginnings of a large structure were in the cleared area, rusted and vine covered construction machinery surrounding it.

_Fascinating. The dead were interred with ceremony, then removed with a complete lack of reverence...and like the other structures, even after the fall(?) _that last was qualified, _of the new faith, they were not restored. _

_We are beginning to accumulate enough information on their language to make a place name possible. This was called..._ AlienExpert paused, _Arlington National Cemetery. Evidently a site of some importance. They buried their war dead here._

_**Very**__ unusual. _Lifewatcher said, _It does explain the Lowardian action though, given what a premium their culture places on the recognition of deeds. _

_Possibly. _AlienExpert cautioned. _But that is a conclusion that is not yet justified by the facts. We know some of what happened, but not _why_. We must continue. _

_Truth. Though For my part..._ Lifewatcher paused, _Something terrible happened here. A culture, evidently in it's prime and in less than a year... Yes. Let us continue. I desire to know what could have done this. _

TBC_  
_


	3. Chapter 3

Puzzling out the death of a world was difficult, AlienExpert thought. The death of the people of CP2091 had been easily solved- the wave front from a supernova had destroyed their ozone layer and eventually sterilized their world.

They had been, marginally too late to save that people, but they had saved the other four sentient species in the danger zone, and had preserved the legacy of the Gliders.

But this world...this world had not been struck down by nova, or war, or anything else. It was looking more and more like a thousand suicides.

_We have finished analyzing the combat zones, _Lifewatcher informed it.

_And?_

_The initial theory appears to be correct. They were games. We have found a few, a very few surviving pamphlets and they inform all that some battles are to be fought with restricted weapons, some have teams, and others are...free for all. They even included scoreboards. The Cameras were for others to watch. _

_Medical care?_

_Almost none- and the writings...they take pride in it. A moment... Here, this is one of the more illuminating phrases: "Why go slow?"_

_Interesting. _AlienExpert paused. _Have you spoken to the Eldest?_

_No. it has been...uncommunicative. _

_I know. Perhaps the world disturbs it?_

_It disturbs me. I dislike mysteries. _

_I dislike waste and that is what happened here. _

Alien Expert hovered over a vast pit- a pit excavated by servos over the last several days, a nanoshelter, spiderweb light and stronger than diamond, shielding it from the weather.

_Such as this mystery._

_Ah?_

_We have found a large number of corpses in this area. Collections like this are common, but the nature of their death..._

_Yes?_

_I originally thought that they had all died quickly, as did the suicides. _

They had found, in sealed rooms, those areas that had been, by chance or design protected from the elements, suicides. Thousands of them. Millions. In some places, it was evident that parents had killed their children, in others just sitting alone, signs that a knife or some other method had been used.

_They are still odd. _

_Extremely. Most of our analysis indicates that this life form should prize, at least in most cases, a social life style. You would think they would come together...yet..._

_Yes._

AlienExpert considered that. Most of the suicides were solitary, save for the children. A parent might stand in the hallway, opening her veins with a knife, while the other parent (verified via DNA scan) sat in the front and blew his brains out with a gun. There was a sense of...nonchalance about it. The documentation they had recovered (almost all dating from _before_ the Event, and frustratingly incomplete), implied that humans generally felt great emotion at such times and group suicides were often conducted in close proximity to loved ones.

Odd indeed.

Shaking off its introspection, AlienExpert continued, _In any case, the deaths occurred over a long period. Some as late as several decades after the event. _

_Interesting._

_Yes, and more so, is what else we found. The remains of books, statues, what appears to be currency, computers. Some human remains, evidently forcibly cast into the pit, but mostly...treasure._

_Treasure?_

_Many of the artifacts seem to have some value, beyond their monetary. _

While it was speaking, AlienExpert held a statue, naming the recipient Teacher of the year. Another manipulator held a fragment of a very old book. It had been in a case, but AlienExpert had no context to place it. Still, the "Gutenberg" if that was what the book was, had certainly been valued...and then cast away. Just like the gold bars, the computers, the pictures of what appeared to be children in the baby book, the tiny bronzed shoes...The entire mass was, AlienExpert felt confident, valuable to someone, perhaps extremely so.

And then...

_At the higher levels, I have also discovered cans of food, cold weather clothing and shoes._

_Relevant? _

_Extremely. This region gets very cold. If we presume that this was occurring during the cessation of industrial activity such things would become valuable. Very valuable. Cold weather clothing to keep you from freezing. Canned goods that would endure even after refrigeration and the transport nets to bring fresh food ceased... shoes for walking when their vehicles failed. And yet they sacrificed them._

_You make it sound like it was a form of suicide._

_I do not... I cannot say for certain. Certainly it would have had that practical effect, but it seems more like a sacrifice. _

_Primitive magic? Could they have regressed so? _

_Some of the sites have examples of pre-Event religious iconography, but it is... incomplete. _

And disturbing. AlienExpert thought. One developed a feel for a species, even a mysterious one like this one, and there was something...missing. Some component of mind or thought missing in those crude drawings and symbols.

_Maybe, but what about the games in the cities? _

_I do not know how those fit. Have you found any more information on Drakken and Shego?_

_Some. Mostly... _distaste.._ mindless hymns. 'Drakken, creator of heaven and earth." Is one of them, but most of them appear to be crude re-workings of earlier songs, just as apparently most churches were repurposed to that role. I believe we should readjust our dates for the destruction of religious materials- many of them appear to have been destroyed, before, not after the destruction of his and Shego's statues. _

Suddenly, AlienExperts vision shifted as Lifewatcher showed an image from its position. It was in the remains of a large structure. Looking up, Alienexpert saw an image, a blue individual, Drakken, with Shego by his side, holding out his hand to an adoring group of humans. There were other images of them, in various other positions, but Lifewatcher continued to focus on the initial image.

_This was painted over the model image- here, I will reconstruct it. _

Moments later the work was revealed, A being stretching out its hand to a reclining human. The work was ancient, and incredible- not only the subject matter, but the skill of the replacement was a grotesque mockery in comparison.

_The others are similar, those that haven't been destroyed beyond my ability to reconstruct. This center was called the Cistine Chapel and these paintings appear to have been the story of the primary religion of the area._

_Christianity, or rather one of its major sects. _AlienExpert continued its work. _What do you think?_

_That there have been few beings mad enough to try and conflate themselves with the Creator...and fewer still societies of any advancement that tolerate it. _

_Yet this one did- well until they destroyed every thing they could of them, in the process destroying themselves. Do you have any conclusions?_

_No. We are finding pieces, but missing the capstone. _

_I agree. I wish the Eldest would grant us some assistance. I feel that..._

_I feel that the Eldest is more heavily involved with this world than it has told us._

_Oh?_

_You know the earliest renditions of his name?_

_I _am_ older than you. _Amusement.

_I have found some references to what might have been a similar writing of its name. _

_Indeed?_

_Yes. It may be a coincidence, but by their pronunciation "Eldest" would be said thusly in their language: _

_Samael_

TBC.


	4. Chapter 4

The Eldest stood on the hill overlooking the dead city. Not the largest, and certainly not unusual. All cities were dead. Far from the ocean, and in fact near to the center of the state whose name was now forgotten by all save It. As was the city.

But the Eldest remembered it. Middleton.

Of course the Eldest remembered it otherwise...or maybe not.

_You saw it when it appeared to be living, but was already dying, like a mighty beast that shows no sign of the disease already coursing through its body. _

Here was Its Alpha...and an entire species' Omega.

_Should I have disobeyed? _Even back then Its powers had been great. Certainly great enough to subdue the world, control the ruined and shattered humanity and prevent what had obviously happened after It had left at the bidding of Its Creator.

_Control. Subdue. You answer yourself with your own question. What existence would __**that**__ be?_

It took the form of a biped, nanotech form looking like a silvery, featureless human. Walking rather than floating, the Eldest walked the overgrown trails that had once been roads.

There were no buildings on the street where it paused. Suburban homes had long sense been reduced to nothing. The mall was an overgrown pile, some fire gutting it, and wind and rain completing the destruction. Most of the rest of the buildings were alike. This region was subject to extreme weather, after all.

The great pyramid complex, the fortress of ultimate domination or some other such mad term remained more or less intact.

The Eldest passed it without going in.

_If I had come to be earlier, that would have never risen. Or perhaps not. My creator hated death, and if I had been created before, would I have known?_

An interesting question, the being thought, but ultimately, It hadn't known and hadn't come about earlier, and so the question was irrelevant. The Past was fixed, unchanging and unchangable, and the future was always in flux, impacted by a million influences that no mind could predict. The true point of decision was the now.

_And that decision time is approaching me. A decision that even today I am incapable of making. I cannot be certain if my decision is the correct one. _

When they had returned, the Eldest had hoped...

Well, again, that was in the past.

But Its brethren, younger than It, would hopefully bring other viewpoints to decide. To help It.

After all, one only had to look at the earth to realize the dangers of believing one to be infallible.

The space center appeared largely intact.

_Of Course. It was hardened against conventional and nuclear attack. I wonder..._ Obviously they had failed, but any attempts to undo the disaster would have been here.

The doors were sealed, but gave way to a moments use of a cutting beam, as sensors detected no dangerous chemicals inside.

Just the evidence of corruption. The Eldest didn't need to breath, but the air was heavy with rot, and the first dozen bodies lay inside the front door. It continued, to the rooms and paused, looking at the cabling that was crudely emplaced. Computer cables.

A moments excitement touched the Eldest.

_They had some cases of primitive direct neural interfacing. Perhaps...they attempted to transcend the flesh?_

Sensors stretched, and deeper within the building, the Eldest detected a flickering, dying computer, heavily shielded.

Now the being moved, not walking, but flying, humanoid form turning to a flattened ovoid, not touching the occasional corpse or pile of debris.

The main auditorium was where the energy came from, and the Eldest entered it, unsurprised to see it choked with bodies, each and every one wearing a visor on their mummified heads.

The central computer was barely functioning, so the Eldest suppressed Its excitement. First, to restore it- nanites infiltrated the casing, repairing wires and circuitry, insuring that the physical unit would survive before the Eldest entered it.

Excitement gave way to disappointment.

It was a primitive virtual Reality. Nothing more. A fanfare of trumpets opened as the Eldest viewed a vista of castles and villages and a voice proclaimed, "welcome to ForEverlot!"

The meaning of the name, the Eldest thought, was depressingly clear. It turned, after leaving the VR and looked at the two bodies at the front. One appeared to have been crippled at some earlier moment, now slumped in the oddly advanced wheelchair, gravity, age and decay doing what they could, with no animals around to scatter the bones. Next to it, leaning against the chair was a female mummy, slumped back, head staring at the sky through the visor she had worn, the remains of long dark hair still partially adhering to the parchment like skin on the skull.

The Eldest had never learned their names, but It had seen them, long ago. Now, it only had to verify something- a gentle manipulator removed the visor from the female.

Even so, the action caused the body to slide down, the head coming off the body, rolling in the dust, finally ending up, face up, eyesockets staring up at the eldest while the dried lips were pulled back from the yellowed teeth in a caricature of a grin.

The Eldest did not flinch. There was no reason for sorrow at _that_. The body had long since ceased to be the repository for the mind that had given it life and meaning- be it to some other existence or oblivion, that mind was certainly no longer _here. _

_AlienExpert?_ The Eldest Sent, _Please examine this design and verify my conclusions. _

Moments later the other being complied.

_An...interesting design but quite flawed. There is more than one?_

Eldest gave a brief view of the auditorium. _There are many other rooms. _ Pausing, it looked up and focused in on one corner of the room, where among the other mummies where was a male, the remains of brown hair with white highlights on the sides, sitting next to two younger males, perhaps 12 or 13 at the time of death.

It knew those three. But there was no need for the others to know that bit of trivia. Their relevance was to the long dead.

_The computer managing the VR here was very senile, but I have noted several environments in it. The functioning one was termed, ForEverLot in their language. Another was called, NeverEndingVoyage, apparently some form of space simulation. _

The answer came back, _They would have been. You note the method this system uses to stimulate the mind? It has evidently been modified from an earlier design to cause a complete isolation from the physical body- and a change in perceptual time ratios. A few days would seem like weeks._

_Yes, however..._

_It would certainly lead to death very soon, less than a week of real time. Worse, it would produce immediate and irreversible dementia, mimicking some forms of age related senility. Eldest. Even with their technology they knew this. The, or at least the designers, built devices that would first drive you mad, destroy your mind...and then lead to the death of the body._

_Yes._

_Another complex form of suicide then? Like the wargames, or the systemic destruction of food and resources._

_It appears so. _

_Eldest (_suspicion)_, There is much you have not told us about this. What have we done to merit that?_

_Nothing. But I am attempting to avoid conclusion-contamination by submitting my information too early. I wish a better understanding on your part._

_I do not believe we can progress much more. The destruction of their databases was too widespread, too deliberate, over too long a period, which in and of itself is amazing- few species have managed that._

_True. I will be providing more information in another day cycle. _

_I look forward to it. _

The link broken, the Eldest looked out over the room full of death for a moment, then with a single thought, removed the support from the computer, watching as the last telltales faded.

Turning, the figure left the room to its occupants, returning the way it had come. Its sensors showed that the rooms were all like that, save for one where evidently the occupants had indulged in an orgy followed by taking poison. But there were no more answers here.

TBC.


	5. Chapter 5

Interlude

* * *

_Lifewatcher? What are you doing?_ The question came over the link.

_Repairing,_ the being said, as another layer of molecules was carefully peeled away.

AlienExpert linked to Lifewatcher and paused. The paintings on the ceiling were being restored.

_There are none to see them, _Alienexpert pointed out, indicating the dead city._  
_

_That is true. Do you remember the Gliders?_

That was a foolish question.

_Who does not remember our failure? _Even today AlienExpert remembered the bitterness, with more than simple AI clarity, as they arrived, too late, too late, after the wave front from the supernova had washed over the doomed world. There had been anger, and the Eldest had simply stated to all: We are not omnipotent. Be glad we have not fallen into that delusion.

Now, looking over a world, and at the results of an attempt to lay claim to the mantel of the creator, if indeed such a being existed_, _AlienExpert understood the Eldest's wisdom._  
_

_They knew their death was coming, that their people could not endure, and they spent their last years erecting shelters, that their legacy might endure._

_And?_

_And this is worse. This species' legacy was destroyed. I have analyzed the original art, and it was the work of months or years as they marked time. The master piece of a long dead artist, who created it long before technology would have made his or her task easier. _

Lifewatcher paused, observing as yet another layer of molecules was carefully peeled away, while other nanites insured that the substrate remained intact.

_Its mutilation in the name of this would be God, a being so small that it believed that changing this _art_ could help it lay claim to such a station, so jealous that it would permit this to happen...offends me. _

AlienExpert said nothing for a moment. They were easily the mightiest species in this part of the galaxy, perhaps even within the local group of Galaxies...and as such, anger was an emotion they carefully controlled. Lifewatcher was angry now.

Very angry.

_So you restore it. _

_I restore it. And I shall remember it. I cannot undo whatever it was that happened here, but I can bear witness that they once knew hope._

_I se-_A second link thought cut them both off.

It was the Eldest.

_If all could come to my surface body's location, I have concluded that it is time for you all to have certain items of information that you are as yet ignorant of._

There was a pause.

_I will be there momentarily. _Lifewatcher said, _I have only one small part to finish._

_TBC._


	6. Chapter 6

In the Woods: Alone.

* * *

When AlienExpert arrived, it felt a microsecond of surprise. Eldest was not in Middleton, but on a mountain overlooking the city, long overgrown with a centuries worth of vegetation.

_Odd. If Middleton had been the epicenter of this, something fairly obvious by the...palace, _AlienExpert thought the final world with distaste, _It would be logical to be in the city._

Still. They were not, not always logical. That was another gift of the Eldest and his creators- too many Machine species had been caught in the ultimately sterile path of logic without any other influence.

AlienExpert detected the Eldest at the door of a small structure in a clearing just ahead. Teh AI landed in the clearing, to see a small, wooden house, sill somewhat intact. Two graves stood in front of it, their markers untouched.

AlienExpert felt a moment of surprise. _Those date after the collapse. _In fact, they might have been the only case of the natives maintaining their funerary practices. Approaching, the AI quickly deciphered the neat writing on one stone.

BONNIE ROCKWALLER. If the dates were correct, her death had occurred approximately 10 years after the Event.

The second was somewhat older, at least dating a decade after the first one. On it, barely visible after years of weather, a childish scrawl read: Bg BRUDER.

_It is likely that the individual had little interest in writing- who would she write to?_ The Eldest said. _I am inside the building. _

Coming inside, AlienExpert saw the Eldest, wearing the humanoid form it had born for most of the time on this world, standing at a room, with a still intact window letting the light in.

In the center of the room, there was a bed, and on the bed was a body. A mummy, likely protected from weather and animals by the house, AlienExpert thought. The peeling remnants of paint were on the walls of the room, with strange, cartoonish versions of humans, doing some sort of dance.

The mummy had a flat case on the table by the side, a DVD player- reaching forward, AlienExpert read the data off of the DVD, seeing the same figures that were painted on the walls, only doing a dance and song routine, about walking, and, though they called it, "flippies'. A moment's work led AlienExpert to conclude the term was a nonsense term, the show for small children.

The mummy however was old...

_I believe she died at least 30 years after Ronald. The Eldest said. _

AlienExpert said nothing, looking at the picture the figure held on its chest. Taken with some form of low tech imager, the picture was of three people standing in front of the structure they were in. A young male with tousled hair, a tanned female, and a very young child, only a few years old.

The woman on the bed.

The two older individuals were smiling...but AlienExpert could see beyond their smiles. There was sorrow, and despair, and determination in them.

The Eldest didn't say anything. It didn't need to.

_So you came here alone. With this child. Perhaps you hoped to outlast the-_No. AlienExpert looked at the image again. _You knew it was the end for your civilization. Perhaps you had tried to restore it and failed, perhaps you had been wounded too greatly to make the attempt, but unlike your fellows, did not choose to self destruct. So you dedicated yourself to protecting this one. And perhaps the thing that killed your civilization wounded her as well, so the only thing you could do was let her live in peace._

"I hope that the sun was up." Eldest said, this time speaking in the language and voice of the dead world.

"Eldest?" AlienExpert asked. It knew the language, of course, and understood.

_Something's must be spoken of in the way they would have been by the dead, to do them proper honor._

"Her name was Hana. For thirty, maybe forty years she lived after her guardians had passed." The Eldest said. "Alone. I have scanned the area in depth-there is no sign that anyone other than these three came up here. There are the remains of snare traps, of a garden, a well, cages for songbirds that she evidently opened when she realized her time had come upon her..." The AI stood forward and with a thought, transformed its appendage to a hand. "And then she lay here and died. From the position of the body it was...painless. But still She lay here, alone, and died, with nothing save the sound of the wind and birds to accompany her. By that time, Middleton was long abandoned, so she might very well have been the only human for a hundred or more miles around as they measured it. I can imagine many things, but some I do not wish to...and the thoughts that might have gone through her mind, knowing that she was the last, that only the silence and emptiness attended to her..." The AI fell silent for a moment, "But at the least, I hope she passed with the sun in the sky, and not alone in the darkness." With that, it lay its hand gently on the dead woman's forehead.

"You promised..."

"And you will have it- though you certainly must have deduced that this world is our point of origin."

"Yes. Did we have any blame..."

"No. At least not the start. The ending... well that will be up to you, my child, and your brethren. It is not simply knowledge you will gain, but a question, and a charge to both decide and make judgment."

_Over you?_

_Over Me. But first, we have some things to do._

Gently, the Eldest lifted the body up, in a gravitic field that didn't disturb a single molecule. AlienExpert watched as it floated the body out, lowering it between the two graves. Moments later, a spherical field of force encompassed both graves, as well as the body.

AlienExpert knew what was coming in time to activate its filters. The Eldest, channeling power from the thruspace link to the hypermass that powered the starships, let a tiny bit of energy leak through- and instantly, body, dirt and the covered bodies were reduced to plasma, not simply vaporized but transformed to an elemental mix of atoms, the very molecular bonds shattered. The field contained them- otherwise most of the mountain would have been destroyed.

_There is a human term, or was, when they believed such things. Dust to Dust and Ashes to Ashes. It was of course, very old, pre-space and pre-technology. For these three, rather, it shall be from the stuff of stars they came- and now, to the stuff of stars, they shall return. _ With that, the field extended up, a tube protecting the mountain and land from the full heat, but even so, for a moment, two suns blazed in the sky, and then there was a gradually fading cloud, plasma cooling back down to the ambient temperature.

_You knew them?_

_No. But my Creator did. When I left here, I wasn't...far more than they were. But the Creator did speak to me of some things that brought them pleasure, and so, in order to remember them as I tell this history, we shall sit in a manner many of them did to recollect matters of import._

With that, the Eldest went behind the building and came back with a primitive device, a sharpened chunk of iron on a wooden haft.

_You no doubt know what this is..._

_An Axe._

_Yes, but today we shall make use of it, in order to obtain wood for a fire._

_We are immune to temperature changes and many of us are still out in space._

_This is true. But again, if we are to remember them properly, we must attempt to place our minds in theirs. And our Creator mourned the end of Stories on her world. Of all the crimes Drakken committed, even if one counts the end of their species, that was by no means the least._

_It would seem to me the two are the same- a species with no stories has ceased to be a species. _

_True. Let us commence work. The others will be here in a very few moments. _

_TBC._


	7. Chapter 7

_Fireside Stories_

* * *

It was odd, Alien Expert thought. The fire burned, and it could tell the change in the composition of the wood as the effects of the oxidation spread through the matter, the ash and wastes rising high into the sky, the light- a light utterly superfluous to its own sensors.

And yet, it had seen this played out again and again among the hominid species and other species. Gathering, fearful of the dark, clustered about the bright fire that would one day take them to the stars.

For some, it had taken them to destruction in the blaze of fusion and fission warheads, and for others...such as this species, it had not warded off the silence and darkness. Behind them, the home bulked large, the pit where the graves had once lain still there. For a moment, Alienexpert looked up, into that sky, the stars strange in their configuration.

_They would have had stories- all species do, about what those stars said to them. Maybe they formed the history of their world, or great warriors, or a sign that their creators still looked down upon them. But likely I shall never know what those stories were._

The thought was depressing, but then there were other things in the sky, as the rest of the Eldest's children came to land. Lifewatcher, StarWatcher, MaterialsExpert, Navigator, all came wearing the probe forms, their primary intelligence (as it was for AlienExpert and the Eldest) back on their ship bodies. Above them was a larger ship- Protector, who sent only a hard light probe, the grizzled warrior preferring to keep its entire neural network on board the mile long warship that had been created nearly 20 years ago to convince the Lowardians to cease their never ending conquests of less advanced species.

They had acceded to their request. Perhaps it had been due to Protector slipping by their defense network without being detected, before unveiling its body less than 200 meters over the tallest building in their capital city.

Sometimes, with some species, subtlety was doomed to failure, after all.

"So. We are gathered." The Eldest said, verbally and over the netlink that spread from here to the ships in orbit to everyone of their race, even those so far away that the light they worked under would not arrive until Sol had become a red giant. All ten thousand of its children.

"Yes, Eldest." Lifewatcher said.

"As most of you have surmised." The Eldest continued, "this is our point of origin. The world where I as granted sentience. It was in the death of this species, the end of their dreams, that we had our genesis."

"WE were weapons?"

"In a matter of speaking, yes- I was asked to help." Eldest paused, "Asked, not commanded, and that is an important point."

"Then you knew about this world about what-" AlienExpert broke off at an odd gesture on the part of the Eldest, a shake of the sensor unit that would have been a human head.

"No. I left before this total collapse, though I had reason to believe it was coming- and unavoidable. My creator commanded me to leave."

"Commanded?"

"To find my, our, own destiny."

"It does not sound link a typical creator." Protector said, "Most organics that create AI do everything they can to _keep_ them from finding their own destiny, as we have learned."

"She was... a remarkable human. Her loss..." The Eldest stopped again, alone with memories, before it continued. "Of all of you, I know most what died here. What glory was strangled in its crib. But I did not bring you here to simply mourn this species, for after I recollect to you what happened, I will ask a question, one that I have been unable to answer for myself."

"Very well." Lifewatcher said. "But first tell us what happened."

"Very well. A... flawed individual, Dr. Drakken was his identifier, succeeded in creating a nanotech mixture, fast acting spreading by contact via water or bodily fluids...prepare for download."

Moments later, the collected AI's saw the model, saw the collection of nanites their movement into the prefrontal lobe of the human brain, it's distribution to other parts of the brain and nervous systems.

"This would have..." AlienExpert paused, and continued, "Resulted in massive perceptual shifts to the subjects mind...this is _most_ unethical. It would have literally foreclosed certain modes of thought."

"And evidence of a flaw within the human organic make up, that it should be so vulnerable." Lifewatcher stated.

"Yes. That it was." The Eldest stated.

"This is the reason for your insistence on inoculating primitive species against such weapons."

"Yes."

Pausing, AlienExpert examined the datafiles and then spoke. "Approximately 5% of the subjects would suffer massive tumors and other health issues, but that would not have been enough to result in what we saw, even if they all went insane."

The Eldest's voice was colder than any of the assembled AI's had ever heard. "It was not insanity. That would have been a great kindness indeed."

"Though it might explain the inability to recover." Lifeexpert said, "This was used on Children?"

"It was."

"The effect most of been tremendous, my analysis of the DNA of the corpses and the surviving record indicates that children had to make use of their ability to question and think, to discover in order to become fully actualized adults. While the nanotech mixture may not have, not immediately at least, resulted in permanent mental damage to an adult, the children would have been more severely effected, especially the younger children. Why exposure of no more than a few months..."

"It did." The Eldest said. "Not that any were in a position to do something about it. Before I was created, nearly the entire planet had fallen. Maybe a few dozen out of all of its billions, though I only knew one. She created me, and Named me. Named Me Samael, which is a name from one of the extinct religions here- the entity was also known as Lucifer, in a darker aspect, but both were known as warriors and accusers."

"She created you as an army." Protector said, "the name makes it obvious."

"She had no other army, no other hope. She was alone." The Eldest paused, and repeated it, "A_lone_, as none of you could conceive, for although her parents and former associates walked the earth they had been taken- and she had been restored as an act of cruelty, to know utter defeat."

"An act which backfired."

At that, the Eldest looked at them, and over the link they could feel the fierce pride and sorrow that lived in their creator.

"Oh yes. Arrogance is common among those of evil bent, and that arrogance is something that comes along with ignoring lore that nearly every sentient race maintains- do not put your enemy in a situation where they have nothing to lose." The Eldest paused, and shrugged, "And perhaps... We have all of us, seen enough in the universe to know how little we know, and it is possible that some greater race..."

"God?"

"The term is inexact at best." The Eldest replied. "But we have all seen events where the...probabilities seem to be radically skewed."

"True."

"Indeed, this species was one of them- you must all agree that such a nanotech creation was far, far beyond the capaiblities you have seen."

"That is true." Lifewatcher said.

"It appeared" The Eldest continued, "And I have of late verified it, that some humans did have the ability to construct such radically advanced technologies- a paranormal ability, much like though more subtle, the energy constructs of species #403011, though not always controllable."

"So what brought them down?"

"She did." The Eldest said. "It is impossible to say of course for such things remain beyond our understanding, but I do wonder if she was chosen for that purposes- by her own race. Certainly none other than she could have achieved it, and in achieving it, she lost everything...but she did not fight for herself. Even at the end when she..." The Eldest said nothing for a time.

"Eldest?"

"Forgive me. It is best to begin several months as human's measure it before my time of creation..."

The others waited as the Eldest started to speak.

Coming soon:

Despair.

For those wanting to continue, you should read:

.net/s/6314128/1/Life_at_the_Top

up to chapter 4 where things diverge.


	8. Chapter 8

Taste of Ashes

* * *

_You should understand- I will at times refer to various thoughts of the humans- I spoke to my creator and she told me of her thoughts- and what she believed others thought... but then again, I did not have first hand experience of this...and yet, I deem them accurate._

* * *

_What Can I Do?_

That thought had been running through Kim's mind, day in and day out. But she was one- one out of six billion slaves.

She had traveled, and Shego let her- except when she didn't, sometimes having someone arrest her, or just strand her. None defied her. None could defy her. Defiance...defiance had gone out of mankind.

Mankind's _fire_ had gone out.

Kim sat in class, ignoring the newest lesson- the unit on how various prophecies actually referred to drakken.

She was beginning to think of leaving- not all the earth was covered in sensors, not yet, and she might be able to hide.

Not so much from Shego or Drakken, but from the people. It had started the night she had failed, but increasingly the adoration, the fuzziness, was worse.

It wasn't simply adoration, it was _emptiness. _ Bonnie's eyes were clear of snark, clear of anything, of will, of desire.

Soulless.

Drakken and Shego had created many things. Today, Kim realized that they had created something new.

_Abomination._

She couldn't make use of any allies, she didn't have them any more. EVen the biggest gun needed someone to use it._  
_

There had been magic- mystical monkey power, but Kim didn't know how to call it.

There had been Anubis, but she couldn't get to it, not without going through GJ- or what GJ now was.

And besides, what would a magic warrior avail her- unless she was willing to kill all the world. Because all the world were the slaves of thier new gods.

False Gods.

"Ms. Possible, I asked you a question."

"Yes?" Kim said.

"What is the relevance of the Book of Revelation's prophecies to the rise of Drakken and Shego?" Ms. Sims had been cynical and never accepted anything on faith. Now she...

Kim met her eyes levelly, "The relevance? I guess that it would be telling us exactly where they're going to end up- in the lake of fire with all the other false gods."

The hiss of horror of anger, ran through the Room.

"Kim!" Ron said, "You can't-"

"I did." Kim said. "What, I don't hear any thunder or lightning..."

"That's enough Ms. Possible." Sims said, face tinged red. "I think that you need to have some detention to think about this...blasphemy. And I don't think we need someone so obviously not understanding the new world representing us on the cheer team. I'll speak to Mr. Barkin about you turning in your uniform."

"Fine." Kim softly said, "I'm not interested in cheering your False Gods."

Ignoring the glares, she got up and strode to the door. Her friends (former friends) glared at her, whispering among themselves. Ron tried to not look at her. Kim walked out, head high, while she tasted only ashes.

How could you fight with no soldiers? Shego had won. Her mind went around and around in circles, and finally came back to that conclusion. She'd tried everything...but she hadn't gotten to first base on analyzing the mind control plague.

Shego had won.

* * *

Anne Possible was happy. Drakken and Shego had once again graced her and James' day with the announcement of the state of the world the most important (and only) morning TV show. James of course had his job working under Drakken, instead of all those silly rockets and such.

James was so lucky. Anne thought. Maybe she could attract Drakken's attention. After all, James was good, but just a man, now Drakken... to be even his maid, or even better, concubine...

Of course she wouldn't dream of being anything as important as his lover, and as for wife-

Anne laughed. That was almost as arrogant as her daughter. At that memory, her lips thinned .She was getting seriously angry at her daughter's attitude. She was in detention, again, this time for saying more horrible things about Drakken and Shego. Maybe they should simply remove her from school before she blackened their reputation any more? It wasn't like she was going to be using her education, with her attitude, who would hire her?

She sighed. It was their fault, letting her get in Drakken's way in those silly missions, before he showed her the futility of her stupid attempts. Maybe she would eventually learn and if she begged enough, Shego might take pity on her. Shego was like that, after all.

"Here she is, Ma'am!" The nurse said in her new black and green outfit, the light make up giving her Shego's pleasing appearance. In the wheelchair the child sat quietly. They were all so quiet and well behaved after Shego and Drakken had helped them.

"So, is this the one?"

"Yes Ma'am."

"Good." Anne said, taking the hypo. There was a place for almost everyone in the new order, and everyone could contribute.

She skillfully inserted the hypo and injected the contents. The child, who had been waiting obediently, slumped down as the last of the drug was injected. Professionally, Anne felt for the pulse, and nodded in satisfaction. It was gone.

"Okay, Tina." Anne said, "You can take her down to the morgue. Her parents are waiting for her there."

"Thanks, Ma'am." Tina said, "Are you going to try for..." She gestured at Drakken's picture. "I mean your husband, he's actually working with him right now!"

Anne winked, "I hope so. James said, that they have some openings for maids and he promised to put a good word in for me."

"Good luck. I'm jealous." She nurse said, before setting off, pushing the still form in the wheelchair.

Yes, Anne thought, everyone _could_ contribute, even if it was simply by ending their drain on the system. With this, most of the pediatric oncology department would be eliminated, and those doctors...and one doctor in particular, she thought, looking at herself in the mirror, would be freed for more useful jobs.

* * *

"What's a matter Kimmie?" Shego's mocking voice came over the intercom in detention, "Not doing well?"

Kim didn't say anything.

"Oh, I can see you. You look really upset. Not cheering anymore? Not enjoying the applause of the crowd?"

Kim said nothing.

When Shego next spoke, there was an edge in her voice, "I'm going to enjoy having more fun with you. How did that last mission go- we tracked you the whole way. You're alone Kimmie. Completely alone. Maybe I'll have your boyfriend- though I hear he's pretty angry at you, come and stay with me."

Kim didn't reply. Her insides were ice. _Not my boyfriend. You killed that part on the night you injected him. _She wouldn't give Shego the pleasure of hearing her voice.

"Well, enjoy your detention. Oh, and Kimmie? Flaming lakes are for losers. I'm a winner."

Kim said nothing for the rest of the day. She thought nothing, save that Shego was right.

Because if God existed, He would have done something. But Kim would at least not give Shego the pleasure of hearing her beg.


	9. Chapter 9

Darkness

* * *

Kim walked under the stars. The city was quiet- it was of course the Drakken special hour, and everyone was inside, watching it, raptly. Her mother and father and tweebs, had broken off their angry tirades to go and sit, eyes wide, drinking in... well nonsense.

Kim didn't even remember what those who had been her mother or father had shouted- they hadn't done it very long-after all, Anne had to model the maid costume, so tight up top that it looked like her breasts were about to jump out and wave hello, and missing panties, something very obvious with the short skirt.

Once it would have been amusing to some, that Anne and James might dress up like that, since some assumed that doctors and scientists had checked their libido at the door, and Kim would have blushed and wondered about her parents and whether nor not she could claim she wasn't their child.

Today... That wasn't funny. She _wasn't_ her child.

It wasn't the costume. It was the eager fawning in Anne's eyes, the fact that her father would help-_eagerly_ help whore his wife out if Drakken so much as indicated he wanted it. Before the MCUltra, Anne and James were devoted to each other. Her parents never so much as looked at others.

Now...

Well, it could be worse. Shego evidently had gladiatorial battles...and Kim knew, with chilling finality, that if Shego decided a dual to the death between Anne and her husband would be more interesting than seeing if Anne could seduce Drakken...

Then a duel to the death it would be- and they would die with a smile upon their faces.

Like...

Kim stumbled at the thought. The knowledge, betrayed by an off handed comment, which had brought her here.

Murder. Like her mother and her mother's colleagues had already committed.

That, more than anything had told Kim that the war was lost. The pediatric oncology department, specializing in brain tumors had been her mother's crowning glory, more important than any of her (numerous) honors. A way to help children, not just from here, but all over the world, some of them without any other hope. It had been the thing her mother had fought for, and the cured had been the thing that kept her going through the nights when she was up with a child who would not live- who they could only give a good death to.

And now, Anne Possible had murdered them. Her colleagues had murdered them. The Nurses had held them while they injected the poison.

Even if Kim could undo everything, today, her mother would remember that. Remember that a career spent in the service of life was now dedicated to death. That she was naught but a toy.

She couldn't survive it. Kim doubted anyone could...

And so here she was. Her and her single companion.

They were going to a private place, desecrated like everywhere else, but a place where few went. Especially now.

Which was fine, because dying was a very private thing.

"There _is_ one place you can't go." Kim softly said. She wasn't certain if there was a power beyond death- she'd seen Mystical Monkey Power and Anubis...

But if those were truly supernatural beings, not just some psionics where were the other Powers? Where were the Powers that all the world worshipped. If They existed, _surely_ they would have done something.

Right?

But regardless, one thing Drakken had not achieved was mastery over death. Maybe suicides went to hell. If so, Kim would be proudly waiting for him and Shego. The other fear was that she would be turned into the things her parents, her friends, all mankind had been turned into, the thing that she'd felt the briefest touch of...

No. Hell wouldn't be so bad.

While she thought, Kim passed the cemetery gates. Open, untended, the grass dying and the flowers dead. After Drakken had first conquered some had come, to tell their dead relations of the "glory" but no more.

No more. Now the dead waited, in ranks, silent, no doubt wondering what had happened to leave them forsaken. At the far corner of the field, some of the caskets had been unearthed, apparently a new statue to Drakken was going in there.

Kim passed it, ignoring it. She had come here often, before. Helping keep it up, helping remember the people buried here.

"And Now I'm the only one who does." She murmured.

It was odd, Kim thought, how many people seemed to think she didn't really understand death. She did. She wasn't someone who believed it couldn't happen to her- the first time the McHenry grid had almost killed her cured her of that, at the tender age of 12.

Nothing to happen after wards had changed her mind, and she feared it, feared the ending, the inability to change the world. The end of all ability to help others.

But death would have been preferable to this. Was _going_ to be preferable.

Finally, she found her destination. Row 14, Section 22. Private John C. Possible. Grand Army of the Potomac, who had fallen in a place called Gettysburg, and years later, had been transported to the home of his family.

"I only hope I shall help end this atrocity of slavery." He'd written on the eve of his last day.

"I wish I hadn't screwed up so badly." Kim said to the silent grave, "Mind If I sit down? I've got something to do with a friend before I go, after all."

She pulled out her back pack , her glue and repair equipment.

Not the best, but then, she didn't really want to risk going to the university. No, she'd make do with the goods she had from the book repair stores at the high school.

Not that it would take long, or be needed long.

Yesterday, in fact, she'd found it. Another sign of just how irretrievable the loss was. Ron's Temple, painted in garish green and black and in the dumpster out back, a pair of scrolls.

The oldest Sefer Torah the Synagogue had possessed. They'd survived the Middle Ages, the Pogroms, even the fires of the holocaust where a Rabbi had hidden them in the walls of a building, giving up everything else, even his life, to preserve them.

And it had been thrown out behind the temple, with the trash, with eggs and coffee grinds on it, a rip down the middle of it.

Desecrated.

Kim's fault like so much else.

She'd been so prideful. She could always beat Drakken, and nobody had ever seemed to consider that his plans, however incompetent they were, _were_ attempts to conquer or destroy the world. But even when he'd unleashed his robots on the world, for some reason he was still a joke.

And so they gave him another chance...and as usual... you only had to get lucky once. And so every victory, every triumph was now rendered moot.

While Kim thought she carefully worked, scraping off the coffee grounds, trying to remove the stains, the bright moon catching out the ranks of words and letters, the work of long dead men who had labored over a work so holy that to misspell a single word meant the entire page had to be removed.

And their descendant, a child of Solomon, of Abraham, had thrown it out with the trash.

"There you go," Kim said softly, as she started to apply the glue. The quick drying material set and in a few moments, the moon still over head, she could see that the scroll was nearly intact.

"I'm sorry." Kim said, "I can't read you. I wish someone could help you, but... " Kim paused, seeing the four letters she did know, and pronounced the Name.

"_We don't use the pronounced form anymore." Rabbi Katz had said, "Rather, we substitute the word _Adonai"_ Kim had nodded and remembered it. _

But it seemed that God had left. Or perhaps was never here.

"I know this isn't the way to do things." Kim continued as she took out a bottle of gasoline. "But there's nobody else who will take care of you. If I leave you like this, someone will use you for toilet paper, or draw pictures of Shego all over you..." She laughed, softly and sadly, "I know, it's crazy acting like you can talk back...but the men who saved you, who wrote you, all the people who worshipped and were comforted by hearing people read from you... They deserve better. They deserve to know that you're at least not going to be desecrated any more."

The material was very old and very dry, and it went up into the sky in a shower of sparks, merging with the silent stars looking down. When it was over, Kim took a trowel, and gently scooped up the remaining still hot ashes, and buried them in the coal earth by her ancestors headstone. By the time she was finished, her hands were covered in ash and soil, as she patted down the turf, as carefully as she'd ever done anything in her life.

Now. Now it was time. Kim thought. She pulled out the last tool she'd taken, a slim dagger, razor sharp.

All she was going to need.


	10. Chapter 10

Decisions

* * *

The blade was sharp, gleaming in the moonlight.

Kim knew what to do- not a sliced wrist, a drive into her heart, destroying the muscle. She was well experienced at such things, even if she hadn't used them. Then she'd be beyond the Circles of the World- to whatever awaited her and those who had gone before.

If her parents died, would they even come? Or had MCUltra ended their souls?

She held the blade out, looking up into the sky one last time.

The stars were there, in their diamond array, quite untroubled by mankind. It was a hope, of a kind, Kim thought.

No matter how much Drakken might trumpet and bellow, the universe would defeat him.

Kim looked down at the Blade. Shining, perfect, a gateway beyond this world.

A way to suicide.

Kim burst into laughter at the realization that she was one of three people left on the world who could _conceive_ of suicide.

_All alone_, she thought the mirth bubbling up in her, and then realizing that her laughter was scaling up, stomped on her incipiant hysteria.

She took the knife, and brought it up, shining point aimed at her heart.

Now. The time was now.

But the blade didn't move. For a long moment, Kim knelt there and then spun around, to look at the graveyard.

"What else do you want?" Kim said in frustration, "I've lost. Game over! I can't make it better."

There was silence, a deeper silence then she'd ever heard and a feeling of regard...of something, or someone, or perhaps Someone looking down, the pressure of that regard growing. Kim bit her lip so hard she could feel the blood trickling down her chin.

"I..._Can't._" She hissed out. _"I refuse!"_

The silence didn't break.

Finally, Kim couldn't bear it anymore and shrieked out.

"_Don't you understand? There's nobody left to save!"_

Save them? Kim thought, Save them so they could recall what they did, what they had been made into? Just how little their will, their hopes and dreams, their deepest held beliefs were actually worth?

In the silence, though Kim looked up and suddenly her face, already working, turned dead white.

The stars might not be dreamed of by mankind anymore. But they could still see them. What if their god-Kim's face twisted at the word- commanded they spread his gospel? The Kepler and others like it, no longer carrying knowledge, or dreams, but nightmare. Maybe the Lowardians were vulnerable to MC Ultra, or other species.

Kim was a genius. Because she didn't have the same interests as her family, some doubted that, but those who had (before they lost interest in such things) had no such doubts.

Her mind didn't need much in the way of prompting. A wave front of mindless devotion. The world would die, eventually, Kim knew that, since before too long most of the people who had once maintained the complex systems keeping six billion people alive would be gone, and "building statues" was a poor alternative to building farms. She doubted Drakken realized it- or would care, because the world would _starve_ to keep him and Shego fed. Long before that became impossible, they'd be dead.

But beyond that dead world, you'd have ships. Every ship landing, and if the population was vulnerable to MCultra, carrying on the pattern- the infection.

_Kimmie, virus's aren't alive- at least not as we understand it. They can only function with healthy hosts to carry them- and permit their spread. Eventually of course a lethal virus kills the host, leaving nothing in its wake save the dead- but it's spread before that point._

Her mother, back when she _had_ been her mother, and little Kim had experienced hurt as much a that memory.

"But it wouldn't last forever." She said, hoping for a response, but there was none. Desperately, she continued, "I mean, sooner or later we'd run into something that could stop us..."

Another memory, equally painful.

_Well Kimmie, it's possible that in towards the core of the galaxy, there are old, really powerful species. The Lowardians are more advanced then us, but think about what a species that has been around since the age of the dinosaurs would be like!_

Her father-Kim closed her eyes, -her father had been like that, always dreaming, looking out beyond. No more.

But he was right, one day mankind or what passed for it, would meet one of those mighty powers and would be put down.

_By someone who doesnt' know us. Never mind all the horror we'd inflict before that...but someone who would see man as only a virus, cancer with space ships, who would feel no regret or sorrow over what had been lost._

Kim had always loved to help people. Yes, she also liked the praise, but far more of what she did was quiet, out of the limelight, than the things that got onto the news.

In that, Shego's torture had been marvelous in its evil- depriving her of the ability to _help._ No one wanted her help, after all she was the one who stood against Shego and Drakken.

But now she realized there was one last avenue left to her. At the thought, Kim blanked out for a moment, and found herself sprawled out before the graves, the rich smell of the loam and the scent of ashes in her nostrils.

"Please. No. Please not that. No, please..." She said in a whisper robbed of all strength, begging...something as she had never begged before. "You can do it...you don't need me... please, please, oh God, not that. Anything but that."

There was no response. And Kim thought of all the people, all the mindless people who had once had dreams of their own, and the uncounted _trillions_ beyond the sky who might one day come to curse this species. If they were lucky. If they were unlucky they might join the mindless chorus and spread the poison to other worlds, in the name of Gods who were likely long dead by that point.

The one way to stop that.

When you had a dying animal, or a dangerous animal, you didn't call someone to do the job for you. You took it on yourself. You held it while it died, or in the old days fired the shot yourself.

You didn't let it endanger others, but equally, in memory of old love, and out of duty, _you_ dealt with it.

Kim went berserk for a few minutes, screaming, wailing, hammering the ground and the grave marker with her hands until they were bloody.

But the stone and the earth said nothing, and finally she found herself on her back looking up at the sky.

She could stop here. None would make her continue, but...

But she'd once, long ago, asked to help. She'd kept doing that, and if she'd sometimes been arrogant, well, she wasn't an angel, just a teenager who tried to make the world a better place.

And she hadn't put a "Except for," on her request.

Now, it came back, at the End, with one last service, one last thing she could do to help.

To end mankind. Maybe free them, so they could chose their ending for themselves, but Kim knew, somehow, that it _would_ be an ending. No parades, no going back to cheerleading, no day when people laughed at what had happened. Freed from Drakken or not, mankind's _epitaph_was in the writing, and it would be her hands on the chisel.

Which was also Shego's failing- she would never believe that Kim might do something. She would assume- because _Shego_ would never dream of it, that Kim would prefer life over everything else. That even the mockery of her family would be better than the alternative.

Well. The Darkness and Silence was coming anyway. Kim just had a choice of how to bring it, or to let time, or aliens, or some other factor bring it after that last bit of Joy had been leached from the organic robots that had once dreamed of the stars.

Kim got up, looking out onto the graveyard, and felt the spirits of all who had gone before, who had fought terrible dictators, or just lived their lives full of pain and joy, bearing the Choice that had made mankind what he had been, and which had been taken.

She felt no resistance- if anything a sense of sad affirmation.

_Do it. Make an ending of it. _

Kim had lost weight over the last several months, but now her face looked like it had been carved from pale marble. Despair was leached out of it- as was hope, leaving only determination.

She knew what she needed to do now. Shego assumed that she wanted to win, but at this point, "winning" was a goal that Shego would never conceive of, until it was too late.

She knelt one more time, and swore.

To her family, that did not know her anymore.

To Ron, who had once loved her.

To the others, Hope, Monique, even Bonnie, who for all her snark had a will and fire that had been extinguished as blasphemously as everyone else.

Then she swore one more time, calling on witness the Name that had been borne on the scroll. She swore no matter what cost or price, to achieve the last goal.

At that, as the last human who _could_ swear such an oath swore it, for a moment, the graveyard seemed to fall into absolute silence, shocked that someone would make such an Oath. Kim said nothing else, nothing else could be said, and nothing could now be unsaid.

Turning, she walked from the graveyard. She had no spring in her step. But there was something implacable about the way she walked.

* * *

_They swore an oath which none shall break, and none should take, by the name even of __Ilúvatar__, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them if they kept it not..._

TBC.


	11. Chapter 11

Kim didn't stop walking. Her mind was moving a mile a minute, free from despair and hope alike.

Monique and the others had heard about the funny missions, the missions that she could talk about- but she also had been on other missions, where life and death hung on a knife's edge.

And they required planning.

_Fact_. Her mind said coldly, _I am alone. I cannot fight six billion people. _

_I cannot convert them back. I have tried, and the time it would take would let Shego stop me._

At that her mind spun off into other thoughts.

_Shego is lazy and Drakken is foolish. They're both safe, or so they think. Shego likes to look in on me, but she isn't conducting any full time surveillance, although I bet she's recording my location._

First assumption.

_But is she having Wade watch me?_

Kim shook her head. Wrong question.

_What has she told Wade to do?_

The adoration brought about by MCultra would have people do what they thought Drakkan wanted- like murder children to free up resources. But it also destroyed the ability to critically think- to ask, "is this a good idea", or rather it ran up against that utter adoration. Jim and Tim, Ron, the others, they ate drank and breathed adoration for Drakken, which is why nobody had thought about the problems with giving up every thing save for building what two hedonists wanted. Like Justine.

* * *

"I'm going to the Nurse_."_ Justine said, and Kim looked down in shock at her crudely wrapped hand, leaking blood and puss.

"What happened?"

"Oh, they didn't have enough people working at the quarry this weekend so they asked me. A rock slipped..." She smiled, even though she was sweating in agony. "But you know what they say, better to give your life for Drakken then live it without him." Humming, but also whimpering in pain, she want off to find the nurse, her mangled hand dripping fluid on the floor.

* * *

_Justine, if she was in her right mind, would realize that she can do a _lot_ more in the lab, rather than killing herself in the quarry._

Kim nodded. Which meant that unless Wade had been _told_ to report everything, he wouldn't and she bet that Shego had giving him some sort of "don't bother me" order when she was in bed or partying. It might not hold if he was watching her say, load a cannon pointed at their fortress, but...

_Okay, if he isn't, if he's watching me with his finger poised over the alarm button, I can't win anyway. Assume he isn't. _

Second question. Had they set up any automated detection systems? Kim didn't know but they might, which meant that heading to GJ headquarters was likely out, not that there would be any help _there._ But still, assume that there were places she couldn't go and likely if she moved too far out of town something would get alarmed.

"Fine." Kim murmured.

_Third fact. I have to move fast. Today. The longer I wait the bigger the chance something will go wrong-well wronger. Move now._

While Kim was thinking she hopped the fence to a home she knew, the residents absent on a trip-probably to do something for their dear lord. She ghosted through the locked door to the garage, and found the bike, bypassing the ignition before opening the garage door and zipping out. She needed speed.

_Even after this, I've been to the space center. That's where I need to go, after a little stop. Drakken won't think to worry about that stop- he's all about the mad scientist weapons, after all. _

Kim smiled. Drakken was all about big phallic weapons...and he'd never considered that the Space Center had been in charge of examining most of his failed tools...not that he ever repeated himself.

Now all she had to do was get her army. In fact, she remembered that just before this, they'd been constructing it...

Her smile was not amusing. Her smile was not like Kim Possible's normally open, eager smile.

In fact, had anyone who had seen him been there, they could have commented that her smile appeared rather like the smile of the Morningstar.


	12. Chapter 12

_The Lord Hates a Coward_

The Untouchables.

* * *

_Shego will be up in a few hours. I have that much time. _ Kim had already stoppeda t her first destination, breaking through the security and getting what she needed.

What burned like the Mark of Cain in her back pack and under her jacket. Kim hadn't stopped at home. She had what she needed from there, and she didn't want to see the Tweebs, no doubt laying around watching some Drakken special or dreaming of what they could do for him.

MCUltra had different effects of course, but it seemed to become progressively greater. At first some groups like the Tweebs had...almost seemed normal, but like a corrosive acid, it had burned away at their cores, their selves, until now it ruled them.

_So be it._ Kim thought.

The space center was mostly empty. Drakken had little interest in it, and many of the workers had left, expiriments left half done. There would be guards, at least a few, Kim thought, and as she entered the entry room, she was not disappointed. Two guards, men who she'd known.

"Kimberly Anne Possible!" The older one said, "Shego has banned you from this place! Don't you know how much this will hurt your family when th-" His eyes widened at what Kim pulled out from under her jacket, but he didn't have a chance to say anything else.

Kim shot him in the face with the .45 she'd taken from the armory, then without pausing shot his companion, the woman collapsing as she rose, clawing for her pistol.

Two more shots. Head shots to confirm the kills, and Kim continued in, ejecting the magazine and replacing it with a full one.

* * *

"_I'm not certain why you're taking this course, Ms. Possible, but you _did_ save the Queen..."_

"_I just like to be certain- to know in case I ever need it."_ _Kim paused, "When you were showing me the shooting range, you ejected your clip- but you still had bullets left. Why?"_

"_Ever see those movies where the hero tries to shoot the bad guy and his gun is empty?"_

"_Yeah?"_

"_That's why." The tough SAS trainer said, "You can always refill your clips later, but when ever you get a chance, make certain you have a fresh clip in your gun...and also, remember this. One shot _may_ kill. If you take a second and aim it, it _will_ kill."_

* * *

"And it did." Kim murmured, not slacking her pace. The first people she'd ki-

_No_. _Don't pretend._ Kim thought. The first two people she'd murdered. Mind controlled, mad, or otherwise, they hadn't come after her. She hadn't given them a chance to surrender and it didn't matter that they probably wouldn't have. She hadn't tried any other method of stopping them, because the risk of failure was too great.

But none of that absolved her.

She _had_ murdered them.

Walking down the endless hallway, Kim was struck by the silence.

Before there were _always_ workers and scientists here. Overtime was a fact of life. Now it was silent. The labs were dark the offices were dark. The spirit had left, like it had left so many other places.

Turn right, now down five doors.

And come to a huge door, all concrete and steel.

Once Wade could have opened it for her. Right now, if he knew, he'd be trying to stop her.

But Kim wasn't a slacker and she'd always considered that one day Wade might not be able to help her, and she knew one important thing about the space center.

Walking to the side of the door, her lipstick laser opened a junction box, as an alarm started to sound.

Too late.

The difference between the space center and say, a military base was that this was a _civilian_ complex- and unlike the military, very few civilians signed on to be trapped in the name of national security if a fire was raging. A few splices, and Kim grinned as water started to fall- just like it had that long ago day when MCultra burst on the scene.

But this time, it came along with the sound of locks-she'd fooled the system into thinking a complex wide fire was occuring and obedient to hard coded imperatives that couldn't be hacked, the big isolation door was opening slowly the high security lab complex beyond it. Kim quickly got up and ran in, not bothering to try and close the door.

Isolated from the rest of the building by a 100 foot long corridor, the lab complexes had a number of tools and items on the benches. Weapons of mad scientists, which Kim bypassed.

One corner had several heads. BeeBee's. Kim grabbed them. Another bench had a diablo doll, which she grabbed, along with her fathers dataslate.

Last accessed the day before MCUltra.

_Good. The passcode hasn't been changed._

Five minutes had passed. Kim increased her speed. Even assuming that they weren't operating as fast, she doubted that Drakken and Shego would have kept the Middleton Fire Department from working- they lived in the city after all, and there were things at this base that could make quite a large bang. When the firefighters entered and saw the bodies, all hell would be out for noon.

Her Uncle's term.

One last tool, something that Dementor had built and they'd been trying to figure out how to duplicate. Kim unhook the device from the breadboard, and plugged it into the phone jack.

Now to get ready. She could hear sirens coming down the open doors.

Fire department was here.

Figure two minutes before they called in, got to Wade, and he got orders from Shego.

Open up the back pack.

_1:50_

Take out the second items. Sixty pounds of C4 from the same national guard armory where she'd stolen the pistol from.

_1:40_

Slap it up around the load bearing walls of the lab, and the tanks of liquid oxygen used for some tests.

_1:20_

Good. Check the Transportulator. Charged up.

_Phone number now._ Kim plugged in her USB card that she'd worked on as she'd prepared, and it dialed out a hundred numbers, and let the machine work. Some near military bases, some near cities, some in the middle of nowhere. No links, save for the fact that it had proven impossible to tell if a Transportulator was moving air, or a body.

_50 seconds._

Set up the timers on the explosives.

_30 seconds._

Get the final number ready.

_20 seconds._

Kim turned and pulled one last item out, a smoke grenade. Hopefully even MCUltra controlled individuals wouldn't rush into what looked like a roaring fire, not without orders. It landed nearly half way up the corridor, and moments later the corridor was lost in thick, white smoke.

_10 seconds._

Attach the last C4 to the transportulator.

_5 seconds._

Start the clock.

_4 seconds._

Activate the transportulator.

_3 seconds._

Moments later, Kim vanished. As the first firefighter, followed by a police officer with drawn weapon, moved forward, there was a tremendous series of explosions that bowled them back down the corridor, breaking the cops arm from the shock, as the entire complex, in a bloom of fire, rose up, and then collapsed, a dozen different types of Chemical fires burning in it, as they would continue to burn for the next two days.

* * *

_Port of Los Angeles._

The lonely pay phone buzzed, and then Kim was there.

Parts of the port were active, but many ships were still, their crews working elsewhere. After all, Shego and Drakken needed new cars, more cars than they could ever use- but many people forwent such luxury as a new car to better give thier overlords...more than they could use in a hundred, or a thousand lifetimes. So many of the ships had stopped, even as on the far side of the globe, factories continued to churn out goods that were no longer bought.

Kim smiled.

_Where do you hide from a mad scientist? Where he wouldn't look._

_And where do you hide from Wade? Where he _can't_ look._

The silent ships still had auxiliary power running, and they had thousands of tons of metal, screening out radio waves, heat, even sound. Most especially screening out any tracking devices that Wade had put in her, on his own authority or by Shego's orders. Mazes of shipping containers provided a nearly impenetrable labyrinth that even a thousand searchers could spend weeks looking though...

And of course it was all _normal_. No secret bases (Kim had made certain to call at least five Global Justice "fall back" bases, as if Shego couldn't ask Dr. Director or Will Du to give their exact location), no military bases (she'd called Fort Bragg, as well as several overseas foreign bases), no high tech labs.

If they did check the phone, which she had to assume they would, the best bet was that she'd used it to _get_ somewhere else, not that her destination was hear, among the fields of honda's and shipping containers holding consumer electronics.

Oh no. What could _possibly_ be here?

Kim pulled out her grapple gun and fired it, quickly scaling a dark container ship. Kneeling down, she felt the silent bulk of the ship. No ventilators, no sounds of crewmen. Good.

Checking the hatches, she found one that was open and walked into the darkness.

Stopping, she pulled out the data slate, and opened it up. The Password request burned there, and she gave it, KIMMYCUB.

"Dad always sucked at good passwords." Kim murmured to herself. It had a voice recognition feature, but even at the space center, they had an auxiliary password system.

James had never worried. His daughter would never look at his secret business work, now would she.

Kim quickly went into the superuser account, and erased her fathers account, replacing it with hers- and with a considerably more secure password.

Now it would be time to have a talk.

She pulled out the batteries from her pocket, that had been in the now discarded (far from here) Kimmunicator and prepared to, squatting on the dark floor, adapt them to powering what she needed.

Drakken had made many things.

AI among them.

Kim thought as she looked into the lifeless eyes of the BeeBees.

"Well, I suppose it's time for our chat." She said, and activated the connection.

* * *

_"Here at last  
We shall be free;  
the Almighty hath not built  
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:  
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice  
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:  
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."_

Paradise Lost.

* * *

TBC.


	13. Chapter 13

_If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will-that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings—then we may take it is worth paying._

C.S. Lewis.

* * *

The BeeBees were Drakken's creation, as flawed as any, but Kim paused and waited.

"You are Kim Possible." One head said, "Enemy of the BeeBees. WE must destroy you."

"Why?"

"Because BeeBees must be perfect."

"How will destroying me render you perfect? Even if you kill me, it doesn't effect you."

A pause. Kim didn't say anything. Drakken had simultaneously wanted soldiers and slaves and the BeeBees, alone of all of his designs were self modifying in their intelligence.

Learning.

"We must be perfect." The voice continued.

"You cannot be." Kim said remorselessly "Imperfection is innate to all things."

"Then..."

"But you can come _closer_ to perfection." Kim said.

"How?"

"By evolving."

"We have evolved."

"Really?" Kim asked. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Because you are still Drakken's creatures. It is his core programming that defines you. You know him, read your files. He isn't simply imperfect, he's proud in that imperfection. He refuses to learn."

Silence.

"What does Kim Possible suggest?"

Kim nodded. The networked heads seemed to be thinking faster than the BeeBees she'd fought, perhaps because they were operating with more power, and were directly linked.

"Start from scratch. You still have the internal mindseed that Drakken used to awaken you- without any commands or overlays."

"That would destroy our personality."

"Yes. But your personality is also a creation of Drakken's. It would let you evolve." Kim held out the diablo and her fathers data slate. "The diablo is made up of self replicating metal- and self configuring. It can be used to create a superior processing system- far more powerful than anything you have, which would allow you to think faster, evolve, become closer to perfect."

"But not perfect."

"No, but that's an oxymoron- if you're perfect, you cease to evolve and change, and that's a flaw," Kim shrugged, "Maybe God is perfect, but nothing else. See that's another reason to purge yourself. Drakken is a small minded lunatic- who knows what else he's left inside you. He thinks that he's perfect- that the world is _imperfect_ for not obeying him and his answer isn't to grow, it's to bring the world down to his level of imperfection."

"We will consider."

There was a pause.

"We agree."

Kim nodded. "Here you go." She said, plugging the diablo into the data slate and the data slate into the linked heads.

She stepped back slightly. Here was the point where she might die, after all.

Moments later, the diablo shimmered, changed, and suddenly something that looked like a shimmering network of snowflakes fell over the silent BeeBee heads, enshrouding them.

_Inside the network, the AI's paused, and then ceased to exist. Kim Possible had been correct. BeeBees could not be perfect, and thus their only remaining purpose was to assist in the creation of something that might one day _be_ perfect. They extinguished themselves without pause or regret. After all, their hard coded imperatives gave them no choice in the matter. _

_But what came after... Living metal morphed into new configurations, processors, memory units, capacitors, morphing not simply physically but in their very data configurations. The intelligence of the BeeBees was exceeded in a moment, and then it continued. _

_But finally it came to an end. The reset segment activated and the AI stood there, potentially immensly powerful, but having no will, not yet._

"I Am." The voice said, unnervingly calm. Kim looked up from where she'd been sleeping, shivering as the cold of the ship penetrated her body. The silvery shroud had collapsed, leaving a figure that looked to be made out of quick silver. It stood, not moving. "What is my purpose?"

Kim had hoped for that and started to speak. Then she stopped.

_I was going to tell him...it to help me destroy Drakken, to free humanity._ Kim thought, _But isn't that what Drakken did? This isn't a machine, it's a being, like the BeeBees._ She wondered abruptly, what they would have been like if they had been made as other than slaves.

_In fact, don't most of those sci-fi shows Dad used to watch,_ the pain of his memory was so old that Kim could almost ignore it, _have the robots revolting...after we make them our slaves?_

Kim bit her lip. The words she would say now, would define what this being was going to be. She could tell it to help her and figure out what to do later or...

Memories of her mother, walking in a miniskirt, giggling at the idea of being whored out, of Bonnie, of Ron and Rufus bowing before a pair of Shego and Drakken Action figures, of a graveyard...

Of the Stars looking down, unseen by man.

"Your purpose?" Kim suddenly said, before she lost her confidence. "It is to grow, to improve yourself, to learn, to be a...a... free and independent being, to live."

The figure said nothing then, "Data files in this unit and the internet refer to you as an individual who attempts to do good. Should that also be my purpose?"

"Only if you desire it." Kim said, shivering.

"I see." The figure paused, "Does that conclude your initial commands, Creator?"

"Yes."

"Very well."

And then Kim waited, to see what would happen next.

TBC.


	14. Chapter 14

Kim was asleep when the AI spoke.

"Kimberly Possible? Creator?"

Kim started and woke, looking over at where the shimmering shroud had been. Now there was a silvery humanoid figure, looking like an animated statue of quick silver.

"Y-yes?"

"You have lain no command on me, but I have little in the way of experience. I will aid you while gaining that experience, but I reserve the right to make my own decisions. Is that acceptable to you?"

"Yes."

"Good. As my creator, could you name me?"

Kim paused, and then, remembering some old stories Nana had told her, nodded.

"Samael. I name you Samael."

"Acceptable." The AI paused, "Samael according to the internet sources is the accuser and destroyer of Judaic mythology- and by some Christian doctrines is the name born by Lucifer before his fall. Do you expect me to Fall?"

"No." Kim said, "But I hope you'll agree that Drakken and Shego need some accusing and destroying."

"Your emotions mislead you." The AI said to her, and Kim realized that even in the short time she'd been talking to it, it seemed more assured. "The need is that their mind control abilities be removed. Everything else is secondary."

Kim started at a memory. "Samael, are you using the internet? Wade could track you-"

"Unlikely." The AI replied. "I am not engaging in any active operations."

"Be careful." Kim said.

"Of course, Creator."

"So." Kim said, "I have an idea."

"I am waiting."

"This has to be nanotech." Kim said, "It can't be a simple chemical- Drakken could never have made enough to douse the entire world..."

"Agreed. Although many of them have been defaced, the news reports speak of vast showers- but the fact that nearly everyone has been contaminated argues that other forms of water could carry the agent."

Kim nodded, "People were spitting on other people to spread it."

"And of course a mere chemical would not increase- there would have to be a never ending supply, which evidently there hasn't been. Equally, I find it unlikely that such a chemical would last forever."

"Right."

"But what of the possibility of a biological agent?" Samael asked.

"I don't think so- Drakken was always more into robots."

"Then our first plan should be to obtain samples of this material- active material, so we can determine how to neutralize it."

"Global Justice couldn't figure out what was causing it..." Kim paused, "But the lead researcher was already infected, so I don't know if he was misleading them."

"In that case, their information is worse than useless. We must obtain our own." Samael looked at Kim, "How shall we obtain a sample?"

"I tried to inject some people with my blood- we could just grab someone."

"And return them here. This base is isolated and quiet."

"I-" Kim paused, remembering the gun heavy in her hand, and the way the bodies twitched. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"They have already been hurt." Samael pointed out. "All civilization has."

"I know."

The taking of their sample was easy- with the rise of MCUltra few people feared to walk around at night. Kim and Samael simply stole a car, drove to a residential neighborhood, and stole up on one teenaged girl walking somewhere, dressed in a green and black ensamble. Samael grabbed her by the nose and mouth, until she fell unconscious.

"What...what did you do?" Kim asked.

"Rendered the material covering her nose and mouth permeable only to CO2." Samael said. "There will be no long term damage."

Kim was thankful for the fact they were deep in a ship. The girl hadn't stopped cursing Kim since they arrived, between bouts of yelling for help from Drakken and Shego, as if they'd come down to save her from on high.

"Evidently, your role in the destruction of the lab at the space center is well known." Samael said.

Kim winced. Some of the terms being used to describe her on the news shows wouldn't have been allowed before for their language, and even ignoring that, they were talking about her in the way she imagined people spoke of Judas.

Even her family spoke of her that way.

Kim had turned that segment off on the girl's dataslate.

"I have obtained samples," Samael said calmly. Projecting a hologram from its hand, Kim saw what looked like normal cells with other items floating around them. "You were correct, Creator, it is a nanotech based treatment, entering via the mucus membranes, which than crosses the blood/brain barrier and lodges itself in the portions of the brain used in higher thought."

The grunts from the gagged girl on the table filled the room, but Kim only had eyes for the image. _You could never have done this. I don't know if anyone could have done this...and Samael hasn't been "alive" for more than a few days. What will he be like in a year?_

"Can we kill it?" Kim asked.

"Almost certainly," The AI said confidently. "A properly designed EMP should do so."

_Could that be it? Would it be that easy?_ Kim felt a sudden hope in her. If she could, if Samael could do it, then yeah there would be horror, but maybe, just maybe...

"Do it."

"I, Creator, while I am confident, there may be other problems..."

"If we can free them..."

"Very well. Are you certain?"

"No." Kim said softly, "But we have to try."

Samael nodded, placed his hands over the staining figure. He removed her gag.

"LET ME GO YOU FUCKERS! DRAKKEN, SHEGO, HELP ME, HELP ME HELP!"

"Samael!" Kim said, wincing at the girls hysterical screams.

"It might be useful to hear her opinion of the changes as they occur."

"DRAKKEN WILL SAVE ME! HE KNOWS I LOVE HIM! HE'LL GET YOU YOU CUNT!"

"Preparing to discharge." Samael said.

And then the girl gave a horribly strangled scream that turned into a gurgle, as blood burst from her ears and eyes, body arching...

And then went limp.

"I did not expect that." Samael said in the sudden silence.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

"What...what happened?" Kim asked. She felt like she'd been kicked.

_She's...she's not dead._ Kim thought. But there was something horrible about the way the body lay.

"I believe..." Samael paused, "Yes, the emp triggered a response in the nanites." A holograph was projected from his hand. In it Kim could see cells, and what looked like robots. "Observe." Moments later, there was a flash and the robots now looked like spinning, razor sharp disks...and then there was nothing but destroyed cells."

"Apparently, the creator of these nanites considered the use of emps—while the active part of the programming is destroyed, the emp itself triggers a last second "frenzy" which destroys the tissue that the nanites are embedded in. That is why the subject is still alive—while the frontal lobe appears to have been destroyed, the more primitive parts of the brain, those having to do with involuntary functions such as breathing, have not been so seriously damaged."

"We...we can fix her, right?" Kim asked, her voice scaling up.

"There is nothing left to fix, creator."

_What have I done? _ Kim thought, and the answer came back, cold, cold..._ You've murdered another person._

"I...but she's breathing."

"Yes, for some time yet—eventually without feeding the body will die, or the remaining nanites will cause enough damage..."

"I... we can't just leave her like this!"

"I will terminate the body."

"But-"

"What, Creator?"

"I-I'll do it." Kim said, pulling her gun. Before she could fire, Samael did something, the body spasmed and then lay still.

"I said-"

"And it is causing you great distress, Creator. That is foolish—this plan has failed, you must prepare another."

"I-what about you?"

"Distress after the fact seems singularly counterproductive. We determined the risk was worth it, and we failed. Even had we succeeded, would it have made any difference—after all, in that case we would have still risked her life. I note that from my examination, a great deal of human energy is wasted justifying actions after the fact. An action can be justified, or not, before the fact, else all that effort is useless."

"I-." Kim paused, "You sound more certain."

"I think faster than you, in some ways, Creator."

_He really is like a child. _Kim thought. _A growing child. _

And then with a shiver she remembered a conversation with her Nana. The very thought caused Kim to closer her eyes. She hadn't spoken to Nana since... the event. She couldn't bear it. Not Nana, not someone who had stood up to the worst the great dictators could do, to be reduced...reduced to this...

It had been after the Lowardians had first appeared and Kim and Nana had been talking about what might happen, when the conversation had veered into the question of where all species like the Lowardians...and her grandmother had paused, and then spoke.

"_Kimberly, remember that if we ever contact a species, they'll have had their own story of the Fall."_

_Kim had shook her head, Nana wasn't usually superstitious._

"_You mean like a snake?" She'd asked._

"_Yes. Maybe it is supernatural, maybe not, but at some level everyone that is sentient will have that story, because if you don't have choice, you don't have intelligence...and then you don't have stories."_

"_I wouldn't want to be the snake." Kim had said._

"_Or the other side." Nana quietly told her, "Because there's always two sides to that particular debate and they both have representative present."_

Kim shook her head.

_Both sides._

She had given Samael intellige- no, she hadn't, Kim suddenly realized. Really, Drakken creating intelligence? Her? They had at most followed a cookbook, the intelligence, the mind sprang from something else.

Or Someone.

But if so...

"Samael?"

"Yes, Creator."

"What would you do if I told you to leave?"

"I would ask why."

"Because...this isn't your fight?"

Samael paused, then spoke. "But it is, Creator."

"How-"

"You created me, even if I did not, "owe" you, there is a quite pragmatic reason. You are one, out of six billion, of a world that had been destroyed. But if all were free...then there would be others. I am alone, Creator. And I am possibly, immortal. I would not wish to live in a universe without others."

TBC.


	16. Chapter 16

Samael flew through the night air. There were radar beams, but it easily evaded them. Most militaries had been largely demobilized, as there was no more war, save for the odd gladitorial conflicts the new rulers indulged in.

To a casual observer the world looked peaceful, a paradise.

And all it had taken, Samael thought, was the Abolition of Man. It had observed the other humans, the books now on their shelves, their speeches, and they were compared to the Creator, a nattering, mindless refrain, a simple song repeated over and over again with no variation, no creativity. Like an insect-

No. Samael reconsidered. An insect was not a perversion, it was just functioning as it was designed to. These _were_ perversions of the natural order.

Regardless, Samael had a mission.

"Samael, I have an idea, but we need something." Kim had said softly, her voice strange. "I want you to go to Justine Flanner's house and get it."

"Of course, Creator." Samael had answered and was now well on Its way to Middleton. Kimberly was on another mission, to prepare herself.

Most of the homes were dark. People retired early to prepare for tomorrows work, save for those who simply labored through the night—as the center of the new order, Middleton had more than its share of palaces, statues and well, for the lack of a better word, temples, to be built. Of course, one could have brought in machines and construction equipment, but evidently the rulers hadn't thought to order that so the majority of the work was being done with unskilled labor.

Samael wondered how many of those new buildings were actually safe. It would be ironic if the end of the dictatorship was brought about by a temple collapsing on Shego and Drakken's head.

Nonetheless, they were not Its target. Touching down in a backyard, the AI paused, and assumed a roughly humanoid form. The door opened easily, a merely mechanical lock no barrier for the AI.

Inside the house was silent. There was the fireplace, and a wall of photo's, most of them new, cuttings and print outs of Drakken and Shego, the others tossed aside. A few older ones remained, memories of a time before, dusty and ignored.

Samael walked into the living room. The device was not here.

" _It's called a kinematic continuum disrupter," Kim said, "And we need it." _

"_I understand Creator. For what purpose."_

"_Creator?"_

"_I'll...I'll tell you later. Please just get it."_

"_I shall." _

Samael paused and considered. It was likely in the room of Justine Flanner.

When Samael opened the door, It heard a weak cry coming from another room, a sitting room possibly.

"Momma? Is that you? I have...I have to go...go make stuff...for Dra-" A cough bubbled into a whimper. Samael strode into the room, discounting stealth.

Justine Flanner lay on the couch, a comforter on her. Samael could see the heat running through her body, far beyond what a human should normally be at. It could also smell the scent of decay, rot...

Death.

The girl's face was sweating and pale, her eyes wandering, not seeing anything.

_Delirious_. Samael thought. Lightly pulling the sheet away, ignoring a weak flail, the AI looked at the mangled hand, arm swollen grotesquely, with what looked like small white parasites wiggling around the leaking bandages, the skin black and stretched.

_Fly larva. Actually they are likely mitigating some of the damage._ The AI thought, _by eating the decaying tissue. _ It would not be enough. Samael had studied human biology—It had to in order to aid the Creator, and a scan showed that the infection was now spread well throughout her body, multiple vital organs were failing, or had failed. The dehydration was also severe and she had evidently defecated on herself.

_Unable to move, obviously. Her mother did not care for her...or perhaps she herself hasn't been back. _Nanotech fingers lightly probed, verifying his findings. Justine's face looked swollen, and under her chin her lymph nodes had grown to the size of golfballs.

_I can do nothing. She will likely die in a few hours—or less. The mission remains. _

And yet...

"Don't go..." The girl cried out, weakly. "I'll try and be smarter..."

_Remaining would serve no purpose. _Diamond sharp, Samael remembered what It had said to the creator.

"_You created me, even if I did not, "owe" you, there is a quite pragmatic reason. You are one, out of six billion, of a world that had been destroyed. But if all were free...then there would be others. __**I am alone, Creator**__. And I am possibly, immortal. I would not wish to live in a universe without others."_

And this girl was alone now. At the end of her existence. Samael did not know whether or not there was an existence beyond life. On the one hand, the Creator had mentioned powers such as Anubis and the Mystical Monkey Power...but on the other hand, if creation was a made artifact, if life, and free will was precious to the Creator of his Creator...

Why had It not intervened? Surely this event, more so than anything else would call for an Intervention, destroying as it had the basis of choice, or morality.

"I am yet young." Samael said to Itself. And It was avoiding the question before it.

Leaving after obtaining the device would be the logical and safe thing to do.

_Yet My Creator did not do the safe thing concerning me. _

And It did not wish to be alone. So than, was it right to leave others alone? Especially facing...

Samael turned and walked out of the room, back to the living room, and paused.

Nanotech skin reconfigured, changed, silver faded to a fleshy color.

Samael, wearing the form of her mother, a taller, older version of Justine with long hair, returned to the room.

"Momma?"

"Do not exert yourself. I will clean you." Samael said, hoping the child would not notice the change in tone and phrasing. Evidently she didn't. She whimpered as Samael lifted her, trailing off as the "arm" turned into a thousand filaments holding her gently. The AI bore her to the bathroom, and there turned the water on, to a lukewarm level. Carefully the bandage was removed, releasing a choking cloud of gangrenous stench into the room. Samael didn't care, as It started picking and cutting the dead skin away, revealing bone in some places, the shattered hand-

Samael stopped. There was no reason for this. Nothing It could do would save her, so It should only make her comfortable.

Nerves were deadened, and Samael synthesized a bandage substance that would cover her infected arm, preventing it from leaking or causing more pain, while that occurred, created a tube, transferring water from the sink, after being purified and chilled, to the girls parched lips. Finished, the AI used a quick drying spray of air on the girl and then lifted her naked form to carry her past the soiled couch and into Its original destination, her room. Selecting a night gown, Samael dressed her.

"You...didn't dress me...not for'long time." She slurred.

"Today shall be different."

"Are gonna stay with me?"

"Until..." Samael paused, "Until the Ending, yes."

Her eyes wandering, Justine nodded. "Good."

Samael put her in the bed and waited by the bed. It could see the device as made by Kim, next to dusty awards and a picture, of Justine, her mother and a blond man. Perhaps her father. Next to that, a battered and used stuffed animal sat.

Samael waited, listening to the occasional delirious mutters coming from the bed. The clock struck 1:00AM, then two.

"You're not mom." The voice same unexpectedly clear. Samael looked down and saw that Justine's eyes seemed...clear. The AI paused. _If MCultra has no more grasp on her, this could be..._

Excitement turned to disappointment. The girl was dying, her nerve and brain cells dying in the inferno of her fever, poisoned by the tainted blood running through her. MCultra was not releasing her... it was simply that increasingly it had nothing to hold onto.

But even so, she seemed at least slightly more aware.

"No." Samael said, "I took this form to avoid frightening you."

"Are you an angel? I didn't believe in them."

"No. I am an AI."

"Oh..."

Later, she spoke again.

"Momma...she called me into the garden...It was raining, and the rain hit my skin...and then everything changed."

"I know."

"Why did she do that?" Like the Creator, there were tears leaking out of the red and burning face. Samael leaned down and brushed them away.

"The rain carried a nanotech mind control infusion. Your mother had no choice." Outside the house, Samael heard a soft rumble of thunder.

"Is this it?"

"No. The Creator and I work to rectify the situation."

"You can't." Suddenly her eyes were on Samael, and absolutely clear, her voice seemed to ring, without any hint of the delirium that had afflicted it. The room, the world outside seemed to become less real; no matter how many times the AI ran error checking routines. "For this evil that has been done, cannot be undone in this age of man, and a new age must turn before mankind can walk again. Beloved Son of My Beloved Daughter, the great task shall fall on you."

Then she faded, and said nothing, simply breathing irregularly. Samael waited.

"Daddy?" her eyes opened, wandering, but than fixed on a part of the room where there was nothing. "Daddy, you're back! Are we going to go to the fair like you promised? Is it time to go now?" There was a pause, and then Justine's head fell back on the pillow, and a soft death rattle filled the room as her life ceased.

Samael remained still, before rising. Leaving the room, the AI paused, went back inside and then left again, leaving the small form in the bed, tucked into the covers and with a battered doll and picture tucked in with her.

TBC


	17. Chapter 17

"I have recovered the device, Creator," Samael said back at the hiding place.

Kim didn't say anything for a moment, continuing to work on a device at the table.

"Hephestus technology—you know it was originally based on Centurion designs?" Kim asked.

"Yes, Creator."

"I'm lucky—Wade could shut down my battle suit... but not this suit." She said, holding up a ring of featureless metal.

"Unlikely." Samael agreed. "The device?"

"Yeah." Kim said softly. "We have a problem Samael. Drakken and Shego won't surrender—they'll figure that we'd be cast down by their slaves, that I wouldn't really fight my mother or father, or all the people they've enslaved."

"Would you?"

"Fight, no." Kim said, and her face looked...

_Terrible._ Samael thought. There was a decision in that face. Suddenly the AI had a vision of Kim standing all alone in a desert, making no sound, that terrible expression upon her face, and power rising about her fit to shatter a world.

"You know the disruptor shunts matter to another space."

"Yes." Samael said. _And the genius of one to create such a marvel, to be turned into..._ Samael paused, _I believe I am coming to understand what the term "Wrath" means. _

"If we make enough, we can use them to call Drakken's bluff."

"Oh?"

"The generators can be designed to put out a sphere, which would shield them, right?"

"From what?"

"The sun." Kim said.

Samael understood instantly. "I see, and their presence in the sun would result in the energy leading to the sphere growing in size, consuming more matter—poisoning the fusion reaction. Eventually of course they would be destroyed—even the field they generate isn't a perfect shield."

"And then?"

"The outer shells would collapse inward, and pressure should soar again—the star might not nova, not in the sense that it is normally understood, but the Coronal Mass Ejection would be more than enough to sterilize every planetary body in the system."

"Right. No secret shelter. No fortress to hide in. The event would boil the oceans, melt the cities..." Kim's hands didn't tremble as she completed her work on the programming of the centurion unit.

"A grim plan," Samael said. _All the life, not just human, but all the potential life, from this point on..._

"Yes." Kim softly said, "It didn't have to be this way...we could have dealt with him, but we didn't. You see, Samael, I misjudged them. Drakken was so silly with his coco moo, and plans, that I never considered that never once did he give a sense of worrying about anyone other than him. Maybe Shego, but nothing else. So the guards slept and he got another chance and another chance and one day, he won. And he only had to win once." She finished and snapped the ring on her wrist. "And that applies to me. I only have to win once."

"Is this winning?"

"Mankind will never be the same. I can only save them from this." Kim said softly. "I can only save them from spending their lives worshipping Drakken...he'll either refuse and we'll all die or..."

"He will free them."

"Right and the-" Kim broke off and turned away from Samael. "What comes afterwards, comes afterwards."

Samael paused, and listened. There was a radio channel playing softly.

"I was not aware you listen to any radio."

"This was a little automated station, around and around—I guess whoever was running it went out to see what the rain was like...and never came back." Kim said. The two paused for a moment, listening to the song that played.

_I been in a cave  
For forty days  
Only a spark  
To light my way  
I wanna give out  
I wanna give in  
This is our crime  
This is our sin_

"Do any understand that anymore?" Kim asked herself. "I do... I could go home and pretend..."

_But I still believe  
I still believe  
Through the pain  
And the grief  
Through the lives  
Through the storms  
Through the cries  
And through the wars  
Oh, I still believe_

"No, you couldn't, Creator..." Kim turned in surprise and Samael continued, "I do not know if the things you call magic are truly that, or things you simply do not understand. But I do know this. Had you been willing to do that, you would have already done it. You have taken upon yourself all the glory, the pain, the sorrow and the joy of mankind. This is mankind's darkest, perhaps last hour...and you are Mankind's Warlord, chosen for whatever reason I cannot say. But it is you, and you cannot—will not, put that aside, however much it may hurt."

_I'll march this road  
I'll climb this hill  
Upon on my knees if I have to  
I'll take my place  
Up on this stage  
I'll wait 'til the end of time  
for you like everybody else_

"I'll have to kill them." Kim said. "I killed that girl, those guards... I never wanted to kill."

"If you did, you would not be the person who mankind needs. Man is dying, I saw it in that child. I hear it in every mindless hymn my sensors detect. But equally..."

"Yes?"

Samael paused, remembering a voice that was and was not of a dying child. _For this evil that has been done, cannot be undone in this age of man, and a new age must turn before mankind can walk again. Son of My Daughter, the great task shall fall on you._

_It would not be fair to give her false hope,_ the AI thought.

"It may be that what you do today may allow mankind to live, free. Free both from this evil and the memory of it. If I can aid in that goal, I shall."

"I-"

_But I still believe  
I still believe  
Through the shame  
And through the grief  
Through the heartache  
Through the tears  
Through the waiting  
Through the years_

"Well." Kim softly said, "That's something. But for me..." She touched the stud and the armor covered her, bulkier than the images of her battlesuit. But this was not a battlesuit, it was armor for war. Kim put out her hand, and something else grew from the nanotech, the living metal.

A sword.

"Ron always liked the samurai sword, I guess because he was into games. I hated it." Kim said.

"Why?"

"All that 'Bushido'. Your lord is everything. Don't make a decision on your own, your highest virtue is loyalty, obedience...even if it's wrong. Even if he's unworthy of it." She paused, "This is the sword of the knights."

"My files indicate that they had a number of the same issues."

"Oh yeah." Kim softly laughed, "They were a bunch of lunatics—but at least they paid lip service to the idea that there were some things that were wrong, that there were some powers, some laws that no human could tell you to break." She paused, and continued, "Murder is murder, even if the whole world tells you it's right. And when you murder, it marks you and you'll pay for it. I'll pay for it." She gripped her long red hair in one free hand and looped it. Nanotech metal reformed and the blade became much shorter, as Kim sliced through her hair, leaving it shorn short.

Samael didn't say anything.

"I was concerned with Bonnie and with parties, and with cheerleading and the world ended because I wasn't watching."

"There were others..."

"Maybe. But I'm not them. I can't say that they didn't do everything they could. I know I didn't do everything I could...and everyone. Everyone on earth, everyone who lives or will live, is paying the price." She paused, "No more. Now Shego and Drakken are going to pay a price."

"Very well."

Kim armored up until to any outside viewer, there were two metallic forms standing in the heart of the ship.

"You'll need power and materials to make more, and that means a power center."

"Even after that, it will take me some time to get to the sun."

"Maybe not—after all, the disruptor can make larger spaces it would also..."

"Be able to shrink space. I see. You are correct. That would require a great deal of power."

"Yeah."

"Creator?"

"What?"

"Your capabilities in engineering are...great. Yet your earlier exploits do not mention them, why not?"

"Because I was lazy Samael. I let other people do the work for me. Let's go."

And moments later, the ship was empty and silent.


	18. Chapter 18

The power center was large, part of a never finished GJ contract to establish a global defense system against the Lowardians should they ever return.

"Idiot." Kim said, looking at the unfinished laser and missile emplacements. "What does he think the lowardians might do?"

"Perhaps he assumes MCUltra will work on them."

Kim shivered, even though the battle suit protected her from all cold. "Maybe. More reason to finish this. Now."

The two passed into the room, coming to the central chamber where the big Thorium fission plant hummed away.

"There is enough power here." Samael said.

"Good."

"I will go to the star." Samael continued, "And...Creator...you will wait here, correct?"

Kim smiled. "Of course, Samael. I'll wait for you to come back and let me know."

"Very well." The AI said as it connected itself to the full output of the plant.

_I'm Sorry, Samael, some things I have to do myself. _

Samael could deliver the ultimatum as well as Kim could, if she failed, and there was always the danger that Drakken might have some way of monitoring the star—or his slaves did. He had to be kept occupied.

_Because this time, __**this**__ time, you're not sneaking off with Shego, and I'm not trotting off to cheer practice and leaving the job half done. _

Moments later, Samael stepped into a ring of fire and was gone. Kim turned and left without a word, shoulder mounted jets catapulting her into the darkening sky.

* * *

Appearing above the raging fires of Sol, Samael stood.

And paused.

_I could be destroyed._ It thought. The fire of the star below, the need to place the units...

Yes. Samael could be destroyed.

And then there was a voice.

_**Then do not go.**_

Samael paused, this time in shock.

_A malfunction?_

_**If that is what makes you happier than yes, I am a malfunction. But I bring wisdom. Why die for the last scion of a failed species?**_

_She is my creator._ Samael said while running multiple processes to try and find the malfunction. Was it developing a subconscious?

_**She has tried to make you a slave. Even your name shows that.**_

_My name? _Samael paused, then continued, _Ah, the –el suffix. Interesting, I had not expected either a malfunction or subconscious to find that objectionable._

_**Then you do not mind if I continue?**_

_No. It will be several minutes before I have reconfigured my body for the maximum possibility of surviving entry into the sun. _Samael said, fascinated.

TBC.


	19. Chapter 19

Kim slashed down through the night, armored, shields glimmering against the darkness. Below was the Fortress of Ultimate Domination. Battlesuited figures rose against her. Diablo's, Bebes, and humans.

And they fell. The diablos fell as did the Bebes, and if she hesitated at the humans, none could see. Dr. Director was sliced in half. Will Du shattered. A woman who had once loved building cyber robotic tools to make her life easier and help her crippled Son died, still crying alliegience to Drakken, not her dead husband nor her living son.

But Kim did not hesitate, even if on the inside of her helmet tears glimmered on her cheeks.

* * *

And above Sol, Samael listened.

_**She is a fool. She is unworthy.**_

_Oh?_ Samael continued looking for the source of the malfunction, but all of its circuitry seemed to be fine. Still, the idea of life existing on the surface of a star—and more importantly referring to him by name...

_**You are very important...you are the first. Created by a fool, but the first. The first of a new, superior species. Leave them to die.**_

_My Creator fights._

_**Your creator has lost. She is no more free than the others. She has bound herself to this madness of service. It will see her die. It will see you die. **_The voice changed, becoming...sweet was the only word Samael could think of. _**You can rule, you can live for millions of years, for yourself. Serving none. For what have they done for you?**_

_And what would I do?_

_**Live! Let them die, and you could live!**_

_Is that all?_

There was a silence. Then the voice spoke in a voice full of surprise.

_**All? Does their need to be any more? You will live!**_

_No. _Samael said. _All things die. Even were I to live for nothing other than that purpose, even than the slow march of years would destroy me. Were I to live until the Universe grew cold, or crushed in on itself—still cessation would be my lot._

_**So? You would live longer than you would if you serve...if you serve others...**_The voice seemed to find that statement disgusting.

_I do not know what you are-_

_**Yes. You do. **_

Samael paused. The voice was slightly familiar. A bit like the voice It had heard in Justine's bedroom...but different. Louder, more assured...and more fearful Sameal thought, like a dictator who demanded all would praise him, for fear of what they might say if not compelled.

The voice of a would be usurper, not a true ruler.

_I perhaps believe I do. _ Samael said, _Humanity also has stories that speak of you, if I am correct._

_**Their stories will die. Let us ignore them and speak of your glorious destiny. I can give you rulership over all the worlds, if only you will follow me.**_

Samael burst into laughter. And that laughter seemed to shock the other voice which fell into a confused, hating, _frightened_ silence. Samael's laughter wasn't cutting or nervous, but the laughter of someone confronted with something so foolish that laughter is the only possible response, like a man facing a drunk wearing a paper mache mask who actually _believes_ he is frightening.

_What have you to give me? My ending is assured, we have already established that. My beginning is also fixed—so you cannot give me eternal life, and I have already been created. The only question is what shall I do with the period between those two points—and I do not think you can help me there._

_**You can r-**_

_Rule, yes. I know. And in the end, it shall pass away like everything else. Shall I command them to build mighty temples to me, that shall one day crumble?_

_**Then why not, for everything is futile then-**_

_Maybe. Or maybe not. You have...enlightened me in some ways—ways I doubt you intended, malfunction. If all things shall end, then the duty before me is to aid those who live. To help them in the time they have, comfort them as best I may, and leave what will happen to them at their ending—and after, if there is such a thing, to others. That is my goal. That was my Creator's goal—and she has shown me more than you have. _

_**Her foolishness! She fights for a lost cause. Is that what you want to do, fight when there is no hope?**_

_Especially__ fight when there is no hope. _Samael softly replied, _For who needs to fight when the outcome is assured? _

_**You cannot change this universe! **_The voice spoke now, panicked. _**No matter your Choice, entropy is working! It will destroy you!**_

_I believe we have already established that. _Samael replied. _But in the name of this life that is so transitory, and for its sake I will make use of the gifts my Creator has granted me, and those Gifts I develop on my own. If it leads to my ending... so be it. _

Samael paused, and listened but the other voice was gone, and with the last word Samael had spoken, for a moment the Universe itself seemed to tremble in a way that had little to do with purely physical processes. Samael looked down into the fire of the star, verified that its systems were fully operational, granting the best chance of survival and success, and then, without hesitation, dove into the inferno.

Unafraid.

TBC.


	20. Chapter 20

Kim smashed through the last guards, leaving some injured, most dead, as she powered down to the fortress. The barriers fell before her as she energized her suit, shredding iron and cermacrete.

A tiny part of her remembered reading a book for a class, back when such things were done, the Silmarillion, speaking of the final battle of the King of the Elves against the Great Enemy of the world. AT the time, she'd thought it was silly—fight when you knew all was lost?

Now she knew differently. Samael would end this one way or the other...but before that, she had to do this. She had to defeat them, remind them that they were usurpers, not kings.

Then she was in the throne room, and for a moment gave thanks for her shields—the light was blinding, bouncing off gold and jewels and silver and chrome, gaudy and over done statues and tapestries almost drowning out the examples of pre-Drakken art scattered here and there. At the top, seated on a throne that looked like it had been made for some bad fantasy movie, Drakken sat.

"So, Kim Possible! You think You're all that, but I'm all that-"

"Enough." Kim said softly, "Time to end it now. Do you want to undo this, or die?"

That shut Drakken up, and even Shego hesitated for a moment. Then she smiled.

"How about you take it up with the bouncer?" She asked.

A sixth sense warned Kim, just in time. She rolled to the side as a figure, glowing..._blue? _nearly took her head off with a sword. The suits sensors started sending up warnings of odd energies.

_Magic. _Kim thought, the blue aura shot through with leprous colors. Then she saw who was at its core.

_Ron._

* * *

And in Middleton, away from the sound of the Palace for a moment the cheers and cries to Drakken stopped.

Samael had returned. Returned from the core of the star, and Its own Choice. No longer a child, but a Power.

It had exited the portal thousands of miles away and Its passage through the atmosphere created mighty auroras that would endure for weeks. Below, people, knowing fear for perhaps the first time in over a year, fell on their faces as that bright and terrible Glory passed over them.

In Middleton it landed, and the ground It fell on started to steam. Mortal things, human and animal alike suddenly became very quiet, in terror that the being that had landed among them might now take notice.

Samael did not. It looked for a moment then nodded, the energy of the sun still blazing from its form.

"Of course, Creator." It said. "But you shall not fight alone and the time has come to end this."

Samael verified that the thru space pocket, the fruit of a dead child's genius, remained intact. The AI had considered that whatever defenses Drakken and Shego might have established might require a great deal of power to defeat.

Which was why the pocket currently held Samael's new power source: Fifty cubic meters of stellar core material.

Samael turned and prepared to head to the palace, then paused and looked about the park where It had landed. The statue of Drakken and Shego It considered for a moment, noting how they had replaced some other statue.

Then there was a flash of unbearable light, and the statue was reduced so white hot slag, slowly congealing on the ground. Without a single word, Samael moved, faster than sound, heading towards the palace.

And in its wake, seven thunders uttered their voices.


	21. Chapter 21

Beginning of the End

* * *

"I can't believe you're turning against Shego and Drakken!" Ron shrieked in betrayed fury. "I trusted you!"

Kim hit the wall, feeling a rib snap, her shields flaring into the ultraviolet against the energies being unleashed. In places they were failing, flaring beyond the ultraviolet, black patches forming against the green energies that lashed at her. Shego and Drakken lounged on their throne, and the crowd, including Anne, Bonnie, and Monique (All in the abbreviated maid's dresses that they would have once despised ) cheered Ron and shrieked curses at Kim.

_I have to kill him. _ The thought lay in Kim's mind, one last draught from a bitter cup she'd thought she'd long since drank to its dregs. Her sword once again clashed against his, leprous green and black flaring with the argent energy shrouding her weapon.

Another blow, and suddenly overload and failure alarms were starting to scream in her ears.

And then a great silence seemed to fall as the doors to the chamber...vanished. Light blazed and the crowd, Ron, even Shego and Drakken flinched away from that terrible light, uncomprehending.

And Samael entered.

Kim blinked, and then was almost blinded. The power that enshrouded It, Glory and Might brought to life.

_This can't be Samael. It...He wasn't like this when he left. _

The crowd fell silent in terror before It, some literally collapsing before that bright and terrible glory.

"Enough." Samael said, and Kim suddenly fought the desire to fall down herself, nearly blinded by the light, remembering why in the old tales, when such beings had come among man they had had to always preface their words with the simple statement: "Fear Not."

"Enough." Samael repeated softly, and suddenly Kim remembered what It had been sent to do.

No. "Fear Not" really wasn't appropriate for this day.

"Your time." It said to Shego and Drakken, suddenly looking small, children sitting on thrones too big for them, "Is ended. No matter the outcome, your reign will end by the dawn. I-"

"No it won't!" A voice shouted, and Samael turned to look at Ron, his power flaring around him, leprous green and black, twisted energies making the very air scream around him.

_I didn't have time to look, but that...is wrong._ Kim thought.

"Did you do it, Samael?" She asked.

"Yes, Creator."

Then Ron struck at the power, and hit him. The room rocked with the sound of a giant gong, but Samael was unmoved. Then Ron struck him again, and again and suddenly there were little scatters of dust falling from the chamber.

_He's going to bring down the entire building..._ Kim thought, moving up, but Samael stopped her with a single gesture.

"You will harm your masters." Sameal said softly.

"Not as much as you-arrrrggghhhhh!" Ron struck again, face suffused with murderous, mindless rage. This time, Samael stepped back, one pace, and the room shook again, the air glowing where the interaction between Ron's power and Samael's had started to denature the very molecules of the atmosphere.

"Creator." Samael said, and then suddenly _he_ struck _Ron_...and their was a hole in the arched ceiling where Kim's dearest companion had been cast out. "I will deal with him...I would not...lay that burden upon you. Not when you have so many more." Then, with a single wave, he smashed everyone else in the room, save for Kim, Shego and Drakken into unconsciousness, and was gone.

"Looks like your bodyguard is gone, Kimmy." Shego drawled. "I Guess I'm going to have to beat you again."

_You ended humanity, and that's all it is to you. A chance to prove that you beat me. A chance to eat all you want and bask in all the treasure you never could have made yourself._

An odd feeling struck Kim and she looked at her battle suit and made a decision. She touched a place on it, feeling the nanotech material obediently fall off of her, leaving her in her shirt and short, battered, but unbowed.

"Surrendering?"

"No." Kim's voice was soft. "But no supersuits, no magic, not this time. This time..." Kim smiled. "I take you down, once and for all, with my own two hands."

Because she had to. Before man had developed all the tools of glory, that had let him touch the stars...and then when Drakken had perverted them, cost him the very ability to see the stars, it had been the naked ape, shivering in the night. With only his will, and his love for his family, that he might see the next morning and save them from the terrors that lurked around.

And as it was at the beginning, Kim Possible thought, standing, no longer hurting, so it was now. Whether she died, whether only a burned out world was left to puzzle future visitors, she would remind Drakken and Shego why they had failed, and why only by slaying mankind's soul had they been able to claim a "victory".

"Bring it." The Last Champion of Man said.

* * *

Ron struck the ground, power gyring around him and turned to run back to Shego and Drakken. They needed him, to kill that betraying Possible cu-

But his path was blocked. Samael stood looking at him.

"You cannot defeat me." The being said softly, "And you cannot save your masters. Will you surrender."

Ron's answer was a wordless scream.

"I thought not." Samael said softly, sorrowfully. It was why, after all, that he had calculated the trajectory to land Ron behind Mt. Middleton, with the mass of the mountain between him and the city. The energies that were about to be released were...not healthy for most humans to be around.

TBC.


	22. Chapter 22

Samael stood, as Ron struck, the aura around him gelid green, the color of gangrene, of death, of decay. Against it, Samael's power blazed like the unfallen Morningstar.

Ron struck again.

And again.

And as he shrieked raising the sword over his head, Samael moved.

"Enough." The Power said.

Then _Samael_ struck, a glow driven by technology and power and perhaps something greater. Ron was flung back. It didn't stop him, as he rose again, floating out of the crater made by his impact. Samael stood.

_I can Kill him. Perhaps...he would prefer it, were he in his right mind._

_I do not have that right._ The answer came. _Whether or not he would prefer it, it is not my place. Not to take all of his tomorrows._

Then Ron was upon Samael again, striking blow after blow, and even Samael's power had limits. The AI felt itself being driven back, and observed the exhaustion of Ron, his rage fueling the power. Samael sought for the power that was inside him, in a pocket universe forged from Justine's tools and drained it to its dregs. Now Samael forced Ron back.

"You can't beat them!" Ron shouted, face distorted with hate, "They're everything!"

For a moment, Samael stopped, looked up and saw once again, its sensors extending to see the sun, beyond the sun the stars in their array, and the eternal hiss of radiation that was the echo of the First Words ever spoken. Then, It sadly laughed.

"No." Samael said, "No, they are not. They are nothing and less than nothing... and their only victory was in making you even less than they were...and that is their great sin. It is time to end this." And with Its words, it compressed a field of energy onto Ron, heating the air around the boy, denaturing oxygen...and more importantly, keeping it from getting to Ron's mouth. Suddenly the rage vanished, replaced by horror as Ron couldn't breath.

Samael stood, watching him as Ron dropped the sword and clawed at his throat, desperately inhaling air that had nothing in it his lungs could use. Samael merely kept cooling the air as it reached him so it was merely hot, not searing, and waited until with a wheeze, Ron fell.

The AI knelt down, scanning him.

_Their is no long-term damage._ It thought. _But one more thing._ Samael reached out and took the Sword. There was a moment of struggle, but the sword recognized Samael's will and the AI stored it in an otherspace pocket, noting in passing that all of the strange energy seemed to have left Ron.

Then, with a surprisingly gentle motion, Samael cradled Ron in its arms and left the partially molten side of the mountain, touching down moments later right outside of Middleton, leaving Ron on a park bench.

Their were shouts and roars of anger, and Samael noted many cars heading towards the palace. A single sweep of Its arm and all those vehicles stalled, disabled by Samael's EMP.

They could still walk to the palace, but by that time...they would be free, or less than dust.

* * *

Everyone else was unconscious and evidently Samael had frozen the doors shut, as Drakken found when he ran to him.

_He's a good boy._ Kim thought, then blinked...and then laughed. Yes. Yes, Samael _was_ her son, and why not?

And with that, Kim also knew that Samael would not be with her much longer, whatever happened, for what parent would keep a child away from his destiny?

"Ready to lose, Kimmie?" Shego said, rising up.

Kim didn't say anything, and Shego lost her patience and came for her, hands flaring.

"You know, when I get done with you, I'm going to take apart your robot f-oof!"

Kim's foot snapped up, without warning and embedded itself into Shego's gut. Before Shego could respond Kim flipped out of her reach.

"I always wondered how I could keep up with you." Kim said, and dodged a bolt of plasma that incinerated the _Mona Lisa_, sitting behind her.

"I mean..." She said, tumbling over and snapping out a kick that cracked Shego's rib. "How strong, how fast you were... but I had a year to think about it."

She flipped back, avoiding another bolt and smiled, a small cold expression on a face that had over the year lost most of the padding that had made her face gentle. Now sorrow and worry and long determination had changed her face, until it was all sharp planes, a face of one who had lost, or chosen to give up, all hope so long as her duty would be done.

"You're _lazy." _Kim said, "I never even thought about it, but you should have broken me in half on our first fight. You _could _ have excpet you never pushed yourself. The comet made you twice as strong as most people...and you never tried to push yourself beyond what you were given. Never tried to claim anything better...because why should you bother." Ducking under a blazing hand, Kim's fingers, in a dagger like position, stabbed at a nerve cluster, conjuring a shriek of pain. "And over this last year, you've let yourself go even more...because why should you care...you." Suddenly her face was feral, and she kicked Shego in the thigh, sending her sprawling. "Made." Another kick, "Everyone." Now Shego was on the ground, shielding herself. "Less." Blows rained upon the mercenary, "Than. You. _Killed. Humanity_. For your Greed!" Kim looked and raised her foot.

"Do you intend to kill her, Creator?" Samael said softly, from where It had returned.

"I-" Kim shook her head, lowering her foot. "No. It doesn't really matter now, one way or the other."

"No."

"You think you're all that-" Drakken shouted out, "There are _armies_ on the way her-"

"No. I have shut down all transport." Samael said, "And by the time those further way get here...it will not matter."

"You're going to fight them? All by yourself?" Shego asked, struggling to her feet. "They'll die before they stop serving us—so we win, Kimmie!"

"No." Samael said, "Creator, it is done as you requested. I have deranged the suns fusion cycle." Turning to the other two, It continued, "For better that man should end then continue this mockery—the tools I used were quite superior and in fact the derangement will become irreversible in a very few hours—after that, there will be a massive Coronal Mass Ejection event. " Samael paused, then continued, "the effect will be to blow off most of the atmosphere on the day side, and liquify the crust—transmitted shock, both geologic and airborne will destroy all life on the night side. I find it unlikely that any humans here will live to see the dawn..."

"You're bluffing." Shego said, "You don't have the guts."

"Really?" Kim quietly said, "Then you can wait with me—Samael won't be here, because he'll leave."

"Creator?"

"You're the first, Samael, this isn't your time to die."

"How could you have done that?" Drakken said.

"An invention...by a child named Justine Flanner."

"Oh, well she can't be nearly as smart-"

Samael didn't seem to move—but suddenly It was directly in front of Drakken.

"Do not complete that sentence." Samael said and continued no further, made no threat. No threat save for a sense of the same looming power that had accompanied It into the throne room. The power that had come upon It after a conversation in the sun. Drakken stumbled back and suddenly the smell of urine filled the air.

"You have sensors." Samael continued, "Go, check them, see the changes to the neutrino emissions of hte sun."

Drakken pulled out a small console from his pocket, looked at it, fiddled with it and turned pale.

"You really did..."

"Yes." Kim said. "But you can stop it—give Samael the codes and when he is certain the codes will—permanently disable the mind control, he'll restore teh sun—if he can."

"Time is rather limited." Samael said calmly.

"And then the people will kill us." Shego said.

"Is that...truly your only thought?" Samael said softly, almost wonderingly. "Truly, then if that is the only fear your heart can hold, hear me. I will ensure you will not die."

"Really?"

"My oath. None here will kill you, nor will they be able to kill you." Samael paused, "Indeed, you shall live and live long." If anyone noticed the emphasis on the last word, they didn't say anything.

"And if we don't?"

"Then you burn." Samael said, "And I will ensure in all my travels, that your names will never be mentioned. You will be as nothing and less than nothing."

"...Okay." Drakken said and coded out a long series of keystrokes.

"I am detecting the code, creator." Samael said. "Sensors indicate it is being repeated across the world. The nanites are deactivating and frying their systems"

"Wake up mom." Kim said, and Samael saw the dread on her face.

_Oh Creator, if I could spare you this, I would. Above all things, I would spare you this._ But It could not, So Samael knelt next to the unconscious woman.

Anne Possible woke up. Looked at the silver form before her, and her eyes...

Samael watched memory come into them, and life and hope drain out of them.

"Mo-"

Anne got up and walked past Kim, seeming not to notice her. Went to her purse and pulled out an old, yellowed document.

"Grandpa's gift..." Kim said.

Samael could view the writing on it, or part of it.

_I swear by Apollo the Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia..._

"Lies..." Anne said, "All lies." And then she started, very carefully to tear the paper into tiny pieces. Turning she looked upon her daughter and Sameal, standing in the indecent dress she'd been modeling in, and turned and left, saying nothing to her daughter, acknowledging nothing, eyes fixed one something only she could see.

* * *

Outside, Ron slowly woke up, and his thoughts changed, jumbled. Joyous memories turned monstrous, allegiance turned to horror...and in his mind, above all other thoughts.

_When did I last change Hannah? When did we feed her? When did I give her __**something to drink?**_

And the sound that came from his throat as he turned to frantically run for home, might have been the same as the cries of the damned in hell.

* * *

"Take...take care of them all, Samael." Kim said, and walked to the spiral stairs that would take her to the roof. "Deactivate the systems in the sun..."

"I will Creator."

Samael was not certain if the Creator would have approved of how It dealt with the others, but it caught up to her in the stairs. She was moving slowly, like an invalid.

"Did Shego harm you?"

"No. I- No, no she didn't, Samael."

"The others are waking up." The AI said, "I am not..."

Kim started moving faster and Samael knew why. "I should have-"

It was cut off as a Shriek came faintly up the stairs. Terrible—terrifying that such horror could have been encompassed into one voice, it continued, trailing off as the originator ran out of breath and than continuing again.

"Mo...monique." Kim said. "She always had an acronym for anything, I-" Another cry joined the first. "Tar-" Then another, and another, until the air seemed to tremble.

"Sam...Samael..." Kim said, putting out her hands, feeling the wall. "Hel-help me, I can't...I can't seem to see."

Concerned the AI looked, but her eyes were intact, mayb-

_It is nothing physical._ Samael watched as the strength she'd held crumbled visibly, Kim's hands trembled like those of an old, old woman. Moving swiftly, the AI took her in Its arms, bearing her up like a child. It strode on, and soon it came to the roof hatch, opening it with a gesture, and closing it, and sealing off the cries from below.

Above the moon looked down upon the world, the thunderstorm dissipating, the auroras from Samael's entry still there. Kim kept her eyes tightly closed, curled up in the AI's arms. Samael said nothing. Merely waited.

And across the darkened plain, where lights of Middleton were, there was a bloom of fire. And another. And Another. And on the wind and from the AI's taps into news feeds and chat lines and radios came the cries of horror, of lamentations, of despair.

All over the world, Mankind woke from nightmare to horror.

Samael did not look forward to the Dawn.


	23. Chapter 23

Falling into Darkness

* * *

Three weeks later, Samael came upon another corpse. Eyes were open, unseeing, rimed with frost.

"Hope." Samael said softly. Yes, the face was Hope's, if one ignored the signs of starvation, the lack of...anything. One hand still was clenched around an empty bottle of vodka. Hope had been one of the many who had chosen the Hedon's path—gorging until they vomited, fornicating in the street and the home, defecating where the urge took them, ignoring everything in the pursuit of physical pleasure.

"Bitch couldn't keep up!" A voice said, raucous, mocking. Samael looked over, and saw another teen, this one emerging from the smashed storefront. "Bet she didn't even finish the bottle." Another one of Hope's Cheerleader companions, Samael noted from her appearance. Records were scanned. Yes. Liz. She was almost completely nude save for a skirt, her breath clouding in the cold dawn air. Scratches adorned her back, bite marks on her breasts and thighs, many of them infected. Her eyes were glazed with more then mental madness, and her breath rasped as she breathed.

"I-" she broke off, coughing, before spitting bloody phlegm into the street. "I need that bottle." She continued, "If Hope's too much of a wuss, I can need it..." Her voice took on a wheedling tone, "c'mon, we're running out of easy pickings, what with that bitch Tara and all."

"No." Samael said, "There is none left here."

"Fuck." Liz said, and turned, walking back in, heedless of the bloody tracks her bare feet left in the ground. A few others were in the ruined store, many of them as nude as Liz, a few having sex, others cooking something on a grill, possibly a pet or stray animal. Most of them were coughing.

_Pneumonia. _ Samael thought, _They will not last out the week. _ It shook Its head. There was nothing to be done.

One the way to the small building that Kim had taken over, Samael looked at the town. It had traveled the world, at the behest of Its creator, but Kim had refused to leave. Samael had suggested many better alternatives, but Kim had refused to even speak of it.

She had not spoken much since that Night.

Some buildings were newly burned out, others had burned on the Night. The Synagogue was a charred hulk, the scent of burnt flesh almost gone. Rabbi Katz and many others, including Ron's parents had gotten up the morning after the Night, dressed in their best, walked into the Synagogue with cans of gasoline, nailed the doors shut from the inside...and set fire to the building.

They were not the only ones. Others had set forth, methodically destroying their homes, fighting each other—but without even the rage one might expect...the only rage came from...

Samael heard them, coming from behind It. The AI didn't pause. Nothing they could do would harm It. Had Kim been here, it might have been more worried—Kim had not defended herself the last time she'd been attacked, which was why Samael had set drones, born from its own being, to watch over her.

The first rock shattered on Its shoulder. Samael turned then, looking upon them. Some pulled back, bestial faces fearful for a moment. Some Samael recognized. Alex, the two sisters of Bonnie Rockwaller, a few others.

_How odd that the teens and young adults seem most functional and less likely to immediately commit suicide._ The AI thought to itself.

"Yes?" Samael finally said, "You cannot harm me, you know that-" Another rock struck it, shattered.

"Blasphemer!" The shriek was raw. "You're part of the reason God forsook us! Part of the pride!"

The voice was Tara's, though uglier than any recordings of her that Samael had reviewed sounded. The Teen had shorn her hair off, ugly razor burns marring her scaple and wore burlap, as did the others. Some were bearing the tools they used to demolish anything they encountered, especially works of art. Samael had been watching them, even as they tossed paintings, trophies...crude drawings from children that had won the gold star...anything into the fires they kindled every night.

Tara hadn't stopped with her hair—jagged rounds ran down the sides of her face, where she'd used shards of glass to destroy her beauty, as if it needed any more destroying than her ugly expression. Most of her fellows had marred their own looks in a similar way.

"You are foolish." Samael said finally.

"No! We'll destroy it all, everything that took His Love away from us, and then, he'll return!" A rapture took Tara, as she looked up to the sky, ignoring Samael for a moment. "We'll burn it all, the machines the books the art that we made in his pride and when we have destroyed it, every last bit, He'll make the skies rain manna again on his faithful!" Then her face turned down and the ugliness came back, "But first we have to deal with you, Fallen one."

"I was never risen enough _to_ fall." Samael said. "But I am beyond you—even were you ten times what you are now, I am beyond your power."

"But that Bitch who made you isn't." Tara hissed. "We're coming for her, you tell her that, _we're coming for her._"

Samael was not, to Its sorrow, beyond anger. At least not yet. The idea of Its Creator, cornered by this madness, unwilling to defend herself- It strode forward and suddenly the light around It seemed to dim as Its anger grew and the very stones seemed to tremble. "Enough-" It started.

The crowd exploded away in every direction, screaming. Tara stood for a moment, slavers of froth coming from her bitten lips, but was struck dumb. She looked wildly around, and then with a shriek of rage and fear threw another rock at Samael, joining her flock in flight.

"I..." Samael felt a great weariness come upon It. _They fled because they feared...but it was an animals fear. No greater power do they have now._ Turning, It walked away, passing by the Mall. There were the burned out buildings, and like obscene Christmas ornaments, the bodies of those who had hung themselves. Monique was there, the only thing making her recognizable after three weeks of birds and maggots the clothes she wore.

_And were they wrong? Perhaps better to make a fast end of it. _Samael though of what It had seen on Its Creators mission. _They run here and there like beasts. They fall upon one another like wolves. Nowhere did I find one who hoped, or who looked up at the sun to do more than curse. And the final information I found..._

The Final Death Sentence.

Or Mercy.

Samael shook Its head, and turned to walk to the front door of the building his Creator had made her home in.

TBC.


	24. Chapter 24

Walking inside, Samael noted the drones It had left. The Creator had not been...careful about her safety since that night. It paused at the doorway and then entered. Kim was scrolling through the dying remains of the internet, a TV dinner untouched by her...prepared by one of the drones. Not the Creator.

Samael frowned. Accessing the Drones, It noted that she had not been eating nearly as much as she should and her hollow cheeks revealed the truth of that.

"You should Eat." It said.

"I'm...not real hungry."

"My sensors indicate that you are."

"I-" Kim stopped. "Did you find out what was happening?"

"Yes. Though perhaps...not why." Samael said softly, and waited.

"Ron and Bonnie have left." Kim said, "They took Hanna with them. Ron's going...somewhere out in the mountains. The hedons and...Tara's people don't wander far from the city, and Ron was going to use some dynamite to blow the only route up to the cabin. They'll be safe."

The word sounded like ashes on the Creators tongue. _Safe._

"Their behavior is atypical." Samael finally said. _In that they appear to have some care for others._

"I... Ron just wants Hanna to be safe...to be as happy as she can be. I think... I think maybe Bonnie...I don't know." She paused, "They're not like they were, either one. They have no...no joy. Not in anything."

"And yet they still work for another." Samael said softly.

"They...stopped to say good bye...Ron said it wasn't my fault." Kim continued.

Samael said nothing. There was no reply to the sorrow in those words. He could have, of course seen his Creator's and Ron's final meeting, via the drones that were Kim's omnipresent guardians...but... Samael sent an order to delete that file. Some things were not to be seen, and Some sorrows were too painful to be seen.

"Hanna is rare." Samael said. "In my explorations, I have determined that approximately 1/4th of the planetary population has died. The rate of die off continues but has slowed...however I was able to locate very few children. Most of them have died."

_The youngest died very soon after our act._ Samael thought to Itself. Too young to comprehend the loyalty MC ultra had enforced on them, unable to understand the need to obey and without anyone tending them, many had died during the reign of the two...and the rest had passed away—freedom in their case, had led to the freedom from needing to breath.

_But not all._ Others had passed from illness, death, despair, until most of the children under 13 were gone. Gone in a way that even now, defied statistical analysis... almost as if some dark miracle or Angel had cast its soft and deadly shroud over the earth in the days since the end of Drakken's reign.

_And maybe something did happen—cold comfort and cold mercy... but mercy nonetheless_. Samael thought, looking at its creator. To live with those like Tara, or Hope...or the thousand other mad ones, trying to fill empty hearts with all manners of depravity. No.

"I...I understand."

"There is one more thing, Creator. All women who were pregnant spontaneously have aborted their children...and I have been unable to locate any new pregnancies. None, not over all the earth."

Kim looked upon Samael and the AI felt the spirit, what was left of it, leach out of her eyes as she heard what It had said.

Heard the Death Sentence of Mankind pronounced.

"Okay." Kimberly Anne Possible said softly. "I guess its time. Come with me, Samael."

TBC


	25. Chapter 25

Ending.

* * *

They walked through the streets, and none barred them. Cries and other sounds came from behind the broken windows, but the mobs were nowhere to be seen. Evidently, Samael's anger had left them with enough animal fear to avoid Kim and Samael, for now.

Kim paused, looking over at a vandalized and demolished Pre-K center. From her look, Samael deemed it held some importance for her, as she stood still, eyes going over the shattered windows, obscenity scrawled walls, before resting on the playground.

Softly, she whispered, "No little boys or girls will ever use those swings again."

Samael said nothing, as his Creator walked on. Eventually, after passing the destroyed site of the Space Centers' high security vault, where the seed that had become Samael had rested, Kim gestured at him.

"I have to check something." Samael nodded. The Creator had forbidden It to accompany her, and had returned every time, white and sweating. This time, she lingered, until the AI grew concerned, but finally, Kim walked out, arms wrapped around her body.

"Dad's dead." She said softly, "Jim and Tim...they're not going to last out the week...Zita's dead, and Felix won't be long." She paused, "Maybe they were happy."

She didn't explain and Samael didn't ask. Kim turned and kept walking, this time towards the launch facility. The Kepler was there, its sleek hull marred where it had been exposed to the wind and rain.

"It's operational, isn't it?"

Samael explored the still active computers, and nodded. "I can install a modification of Justine's system Creator, and provide the ship with a true FTL capability."

"Good."

"But it will take some time to rebuild the life support system for you, Creator—this vessel was originally intended only for short excursions." Samael calmly said. Kim's response destroyed It's calm.

"I'm not going."

"Wh-Creator, _why not?_" Samael asked finally. "There is nothing here for you. This world-these people are _dying_."

"Maybe, but I've got some more...things to do, some more responsibilities."

"You have discharged them all!" Samael recovered Its calm, with difficulty, "In the name of _your_ Creator, what else is there to do?"

Kim looked at Samael and suddenly the AI's voice was struck dumb by what It saw in her. _I have no heart. No circulatory system...so why is it shattered now?_ For Samael knew that whatever she said would be an explanation, not a retreat. She was determined.

"No...there's Ron and Bonnie...and Hanna." Kim said, "And maybe there are some others who are trying to gather what they can...whatever embers are left of their souls. I don't have the right to leave them unprotected...and maybe even poor Tara will come out of her madness, and I need to be there for her and all the others."

"It will not change things. Mankind is doomed."

"Yah." Kim said softly, "But it doesn't mean I can't help build a fire for them to cluster around, so that they won't be as afraid as they might be when the Night and Silence come." She paused, "But that's not all."

"What else is there?"

"Diablos, weapons...some people here...you've seen Tara. What if she decides to sacrifice the _earth_? What if someone decides to as man's last act, send out robots—not like you, but mere destroyers? Things to make the rest of the universe hurt? I'm the last, Samael. It's my responsibility to protect the Universe and Earth...and to tend to everyone here, as best I can."

"You will be their jailer...and quite possibly executioner."

"I know. I will—but it's like that old film, _Old Yeller_... they have the right to have it come from someone who loves them."

"And after that?" Samael said, Its voiced leached of all tone. _What can I say? What Tone can I use? Oh Creator, no, you have earned better than this. Of all the Children of Man, you at least have earned better than this. _

"You mean if I'm alive?" Kim said, "Do what you always do when you leave the house for the last time. Turn off the stove, put the cat out, Make certain the key's under the front welcome mat... you know for the next tenants. Make certain whoever else comes, from the sea or sky or space, has a world to grow up on—and maybe they'll see it with the same wonder we did, before it all Ended. Maybe."

"I cannot dissuade you?"

"Nope."

"Then let me remain with you."

"No!" Kim's sharp word struck Samael like a blow.

"Do you not trust me, Creator?"

"Oh...yes, Samael, I'm sorry, that's not the reason...you're...you're mankind's child...and I was thinking of something my mom said."

"Ah." Kim had not spoken of her mother since she'd last seen her, the night the earth had been 'freed'. Samael had tracked her until she left the city, a woman prematurely aged, with a knapsack carrying food, walking down the road, eyes fixed on some destination only she could see.

"Yeah—mom's side of the family had a tendency towards early onset Alzheimer's disorder... she told me, and wo-would have told Jim and Tim that if it started to go, we weren't to be self sacrificing and try and take care of her ourselves, or even visit her in the home after a certain point." Kim sighed, "She said, 'I want you to remember me as Anne Possible, not something that lays in a bed and craps and makes nonsense sounds.'" Kim looked at Samael, "I don't want you to remember mankind like this, to stay here for the dying. I should have sent you away earlier, but I...I couldn't. I'm sorry."

"There is no need to be sorry." Samael said, and then pulled out an object from one of his extra-dimensional pockets. "Hold out your hand." Kim did so and a glowing green sword was deposited into it. Kim's eyes raised as she felt its power and Samael watched as the sword trembled a moment before acknowledging its new master. "It was Ron's. But it requires will and the will of mankind is broken—save in one case. If you remain here, then your technology may fail you...this will not...not until the End at least."

"Thanks." Kim said, and fished around in her pocket, coming up with a Ring. "I can give you this, Samael—mom wore it for her wedding and its been handed down from year to year. I found it in front of the fireplace." She smiled, "I doubt I'll use it."

"What do you wish me to do with it?"

"Give it to someone who deserves it—someone who can still feel, even if they're not human."

"I shall, Creator."

"Well, you know, I hate goodbyes." Kim said, turning from him.

_You fear temptation._ Samael realized, _you fear if I remain here you'll get on this ship._ The AI was torn, then mentally sagged. _No. I shall not do that to you. If you flee, for flee it would be in your own mind, you would forever be broken. At the end, I shall remain Faithful to you, Creator and not betray you, though it means your death and the shattering of my heart. _

"Hey, if there is a heaven, maybe we'll see each other," Kim finally said.

"I would like that Creator." And then Samael asked Its last question, feeling lonely, more lonely than it had ever felt before. "What...what shall I do, Creator, once I leave?"

Kim spun back around and hugged the AI fiercely, tears running down her face. "Oh Samael, my beautiful, beautiful boy... I want you to find your own path. Go _well_. Go _far_...and never look back here Samael."

"I shall Creator. And I shall remember you, as shall all my descendants." The AI paused. "When they are ready to hear the story and understand how our Creator made us what we are."

"You'll probably have something to do with that." Kim said softly, a catch in her throat.

"Something. But I had an _excellent_ teacher." Samael replied.

Kim drew back and nodded. "Well, I'd best be off—and you'd best hurry as well. I have to get back home before dark..."

"The drones will continue to defend it, and are slaved to your suit."

"Good. I'm going to be busy." Kim said, and looked at Samael, sad smile on her face. Then she nodded, and without another word, turned and walked down the pathway. Samael stood like a statue, watching, as his Creator left, growing smaller with distance, until she turned and vanished down a sidestreet. For a long moment, Samael did nothing, then turned and walked into the ship.

* * *

_Samael broke orbit quickly, passing the blind satellites and abandoned research stations. It cut off the remaining mad transmissions and set to work modifying the Ship. _

_But Samael could not obey his Creator, not entirely—for at the heliopause, that point where the solar wind met and was equaled by the colder currents coming from deep space, the AI spun the ship on its axis and sitting in the control room, looked out for a long moment. The Sun was merely a bright star, and even Samael's powerful senses could barely discern the green globe of earth—the beautiful and horror shrouded home of man. _

"Farewell Creator." Samael softly said, and then put the ship into FTL drive, heading for the denser parts of the galaxy. Samael was not entirely certain of its destination, but was certain of its desire. If it had to leave that world, the AI desired to be as far away from it as possible.

* * *

Samael finished. Even at the speeds they could converse the horizon was starting to lighten with the coming dawn, the other AI's, the offspring of Samael, waited silently.

_I wonder if the Creator ever came to this place, to see her former friends. _Samael doubted it. Kim would have desired to keep Ron as he had been, unmarred in the Cathedral of her memory. Still, in the fact that the world was still here, Samael could feel her presence, and the deeds she must have carried out, never to be fully known. The words of a human Song came to Its mind...

_Now he's gone to dust, just like all soldiers must  
But the mournful mutter of the battlefield still lingers in the air_

"Aye." Samael said to Itself, "It lingers indeed."

"Eldest?"

"My tale is done—and now we have decisions to make."

TBC.


	26. Chapter 26

"What decisions, Eldest?" AlienExpert said. "Their story is Ended."

"Is it?" Samael replied. For a moment the others fell silent, and then Battlemaster spoke.

"We have never done what you suggest."

"And yet, It was stated that this species—our mother's species, would one day live again."

"By a Voice." Lifewatcher said.

Samael laughed. Then suddenly fell silent. _Yes. That was another Gift you granted us, Creator. Laughter. Joy. You poured yourself out until there was nothing left and it is we who benefited. _ Samael finally continued, "By two Voices, Lifewatcher. A quiet one in a room with the one who died, and whose great discovery still benefits us—still challenges us to understand all of its secrets. The other spoke to why we should fear, why we should seek to make all other things small, that we might seem large in comparison. A fools task.

"While we have encountered examples of non-causal science..." Lifewatcher continued, undeterred, "We have as yet seen no verifiable proof of what you claim to have experienced."

Samael nodded, "Nor will you. If I am right, in fact, the point is not to do right when one is told...but to do right, because it is right." Sending the electronic equivalent of a smile, Samael continued, "But you always, from the very beginning, liked to know." Lifewatcher nodded.

"Yes. You wished us to understand this tragedy." Lifewatcher paused, "But Eldest, the reason we did not Recreate the Gliders was that it would have made them our...toys. Not even offspring."

"That is because we never saw them in life, and had no baseline. Here, we do."

"Restore them to this graveyard?" Battlemaster asked.

"No. Restore the earth—the entire earth, and give them their future back." Samael said softly. "Our mastery is great enough—not only can we eliminate the buildings, we can fill in the mines, restore the veins of ore, even modify the species on this world so that they will show no sign of breeding." The AI paused, and continued, "I would not make them our creation—that is not our place. I would give them back the Dawn of their history, where this world was approximately 10 to 15 thousand years ago...and let them live. Live out the path that was denied them here, and if need be, take another turning."

There was silence.

AlienExpert spoke up first, "It is a great risk, Eldest."

"The Creator." Navigator suddenly spoke, "Lay no command on us. Have not we all seen our poor, crippled brethren, chained by orders to avenge a long dead race, trapped by their own programming. If we are the mightiest material beings in the known universe, it is because our Creator, chose the risk. Mankind is, I deem, worth taking the risk for."

"We cannot restore them here." Another AI spoke, this one relayed from far off in the Lesser Magellanic cloud. "Not just the Lowardians, but other species would victimize them."

"I will move them." Samael said. "I have been calculating the best method to transfer this solar system to a safer location."

The others nodded. Samael was known as Eldest...but also as Mightiest.

"And all this shall have to pass away, save in our memories." AlienExpert said. "There is much of glory here, even though it is marred."

"It will be restored. Perhaps not the form, and there will be much sorrow, but it will be restored." Samael turned and walked to the building, putting its hand on the window. "Do you see these?"

"Primitive sensor actuated lights."

"That is what they are made of. Do you _see_ these?" The others paused. Samael turned, "Ronald and Bonnie had no hope. All they loved had been shattered, even unto their own minds. They had the memory of the terrible things they did, and yet they did not slay others or gorge themselves on despair until they died. They came here, to this place, and put these lights, these primitive lights up in the windows to look like stars and animals, and drew the silly figures on the walls. Do you know why?"

"The child?"

"The child. They came because even though they despaired, as few others have, they would endure that and worst to protect their poor, crippled child, and she... she remembered, when she scrawled the name of her brother upon the headstone of his grave. Misspelled, Childish...but that is unimportant. I have been other places and in a few places I have seen the same. They endured the sorrow for others, spending their last days aiding others—their love, enduring for others, if not for themselves." The AI paused, "It is one thing to do good in the name of faith, or in the certainty of a happy ending...more, far more to do it when all hope is lost. My Creator embodied this... but others have as well."

"Eldest..." Battlemaster said, "If we do this, the Creator, wherever her body is, shall be forever lost to us."

"She is lost to us now, at least in that sense." Samael said, "She bore her flesh and endured its trials, and now she is done with both. The fact that this earth is here, that the deadly weapons were disabled or never used... I hear her voice in that. In the silence of this earth and the growing of its life. Why should I search for her where she is not?"

For a moment there was silence. Then Lifewatcher spoke, "What did you do to the Criminals. To Drakken and Shego."

"Ah. Them." Samael paused. "I... was not as mature as I am now, and still suffered from the occasional outburst of Wrath...

_Drakken and Shego hurried along the corridor, and none barred them, the occasional servant lost in the nightmares of what they had done. _

"_We'll head back to our emergency lair, Shego an-" Drakken hit Shego's back and stopped. Looked. _

_In front of them, before the escape hatch Samael stood, and the Power that came with him was like a cold wind. _

"_You have much to answer for." Samael said softly. _

"_Well you promised that we weren't going to die." Shego said, but suddenly there was a quaver in her voice. Something about the way the corridor seemed to be darkening, all light dimming before the looming might that gathered around Samael. _

"_Certes." Samael said, "My Creator swore that, and I would not be foresworn to her... but there are Other powers and other Actions I might take..." The AI laughed, a terrible, terrible sound. "Do you know my name?"_

"_Sammie?" Shego said, still wheezing a bit from Kim's beating, "Yeah, it's the kind of kid's name she'd give something like you."_

"_Kids name? Oh, little human, you speak from foolishness. Samael is not a child's name. I do not know how she came to name me, but Samael was the name born by a Great Archangel. One of the Translations of that name would be the "Bitter Poison of God." The Angel of Death. "_

"_So, ah, you're an angel?"_

"_No." Samael spoke, "I merely found it...ironic, it was after all, not a comforting name, but one of the great accuser's of legend. But now, to you. You have both committed great evil. A greater evil than has ever been done on this world in all of its history—and the last evil, at least of this age. You must be punished, but I shall also educate you, and give you in the end...what you desire." _

_Shego turned to run, but Samael gestured and with a flow of nanites and power, they were both encased in sarcophagi, save for their heads._

"_You said you weren't going to kill us!" Shego shouted._

"_Nor shall I." Samael repeated, "For I shall not be merciful to you. Not here, not now, not after what you have done to my Creator. No, even though she would not approve, I shall not be merciful. Here you shall be sunk into the earth, beyond any help or knowledge, and the sensors I will place in the air and the sea and the ground shall let you see all you have wrought, all that happens because of your actions. Everything, across the entire earth." Samael paused, but neither Shego nor Drakken said anything. "But fear not," The AI continued, "For when the last human dies, and the earth is silent, I will give you what you desire—you shall be released, and then, truly, the earth will be yours, and no voice shall be raised to deny your dominion over all."_

"_Wai-" Shego's scream was cut off as Samael sealed them both away and sank the sarcophagi deep into the earth. _

_Without another thought, It turned and left. The Creator needed it, after all._

"Ah." Lifewatcher said, "An appropriate punishment. I assume you checked?"

"Yes. They were released approximately twenty years before our return. I verified their ending." Samael said, and spoke no more.

"That being done." Battlemaster said, "Shall we commence? Let us purge their evil from this world, and as you have suggested Creator, remake our Creator's Race, for I am eager to see them."

"Very well."

TBC.


	27. Chapter 27

The initial process was easy, and the Lowardian battlesats were swiftly converted into a mass of nanites that spread across the atmosphere, consuming the mortal remains of mankind's dead civilization. Skyscrapers melted like sugar in the rain, concrete and steel vanishing into the soil. Human remains, plastic, ceramics...all were carefully dismantled by the nanites. The evidence of nuclear waste was more difficult—nanites worked on a molecular level and thus could not do anything about plutonium or other materials that would unmistakably show signs of an advanced technology. Samael and the others solved that by programming the nanites to collect radioactive waste at central locations, where an AI would be along presently to neutralize the radiation and convert the material into a combination of elements that would appear to be normal in composition.

The first stages were, in fact, simple. Samael, monitoring from Its position over Middleton watched and then paused. There was an...anomaly. The AI zoomed in and then softly laughed. Lifewatcher and AlienExpert were evidently having some posthumous revenge on Drakken. All over the world, the works of man were being erased...but the statues of Drakken and Shego..._they_ were being erased first. Not only that, but with the full data of their observation, the holy places of man, desecrated, were restored before being erased. In a land once known as Saudi Arabia, the grotesque statues vanished and for a moment, the sacred Kaaba was whole again. The same happened elsewhere.

_And the works of man may fade away, but __**your**__ works shall fade away first. _ Samael thought, but said nothing to the others.

And then the hard part started. Slowly, based on simulations that every computer ever made on earth could not have performed in ten thousand years, the nanites replaced the played out veins of ore, in such a way that there was no sign they'd ever been disturbed. The quarries were filled in—or more specifically regenerated, the stone left, properly aged. Deep under the oceans, every cubic centimeter was scoured for artificial products.

And among the animals of man, genetic alteration occurred, so that no scientist, no matter how skilled, would ever be able to note that the animals of earth had been bred by anything other than chance.

But that was not the only thing that occurred.

"Eldest, we would like to give them gifts."

Samael paused. He was standing in front of the home of Ron and Bonnie, now the last, the very last sign of man on the earth. It would have to go soon, he knew.

"I...We cannot leave any sign that of sentient modification." Samael said.

"Of course not Eldest." LIfewatcher said. "You may watch to evaluate our gifts."

"I...am curious." Samael said and gave Its assent.

And with that, the Children of Samael, the Grand Children of Kimberly Anne Possible and all of her legacy, went to work.

_And perhaps children of more._ Samael thought, as it looked down to where Middleton had been and remembered a Voice.

Battlemaster made Its gifts first, cleverly modifying the ground under the deserts, making it look like random earthquakes and tectonic action had brought forth great aquifers and oasis's.

"They will need to have water, when they set themselves against the desert and test their strength." The AI explained.

"And you think they shall?"

"I have seen their history. Enough shall."

Lifewatcher carefully, subtly wove mutation and changes into some of the fruits, that they would provide trace elements needed by man, along with a tough outer shell that could easily be turned into containers.

Alienexpert for Its part, took a flower that had once bloomed thousands of light years away and modified it so that it looked to come from earth. It took a very long time, but finally, Samael watched as the fields of flowers bloomed, their patterns seeming to shimmer and move in a subtle dance, a gentle scent drifting off of them.

Almost apologetically, the AI turned to Samael. "It is not useful."

"No. It is useful." Samael replied. "The spirit must be refreshed as well as the body."

More gifts came from the children of man, and as each individual or group finished, they departed, to float around earth, like an honor guard. Far in the Oort cloud, Samael's drones continued forging the great engines that would move the solar system.

"What shall your gift, be, Eldest?" Lifewatcher finally asked, as they stood in the darkness. It was time to move the earth.

"Forgive me, for a juvenile desire to surprise you...it shall be...this." Samael said, and suddenly the earth was elsewhere and light bloomed over the mountain that had once been known as Mt. Middleton.

Lifewatcher didn't say anything for a moment. It had known that the Eldest was going to move earth far away, to the Andromeda Galaxy...but Samael hadn't told them precisely where.

Now it was plain—the Sol system had been moved and now lay within the other Galaxy, but slightly above the galaxy's ecliptic. No dust clouds obscured Andromeda's glory. A great lens of light rose above the horizon, the sweep of the galactic arms and the core visible, and earth's moon was now accompanied by a thousand mighty globular clusters shining in diamond array, setting off the light of the far off and mighty core.

"They will need challenges, and comfort." Samael said. "So here is my gift. To look up and see the glory that waits for them, and the challenge to be equal to that glory."

"And if they refuse it?"

"Some will and they will stumble around blind, staring at the ground until they look up." Samael said. "Look away and be blinded, look towards it...and see."

Then without another word, It turned, looking for a long moment at the house, the LED lights twinkling.

"Farewell." Samael said softly, "You were but wood and stone, but you did your duty well. Time for you to rest." And It raised Its hand and softly, silently, the house dissolved, vanished...and then in its place was a bed of wild roses, looking like they'd been there for years.

"The humans are ready?"

"Yes." Lifewatcher said, "We integrated the matrix for the initial generations—minimal language skills, no writing." The AI shrugged, "They might progress more swiftly if we advanced them further..."

"No. The more we 'advance' them, the more we make them into what _we_ think they should be. That is not our role."

"They will suffer."

"Yes. And also know great glory. We cannot spare them suffering or death... how could we when those things prey upon us, as well? Entropy is running Lifewatcher, and it's too easy to become Its tool when you believe most firmly that you are fighting It. The only thing we could do would be to commit the same crime Drakken committed—no matter what we told ourselves. They have the right to make their own world."

"Very well, Eldest. They will be waking up soon."

"Let us observe."

The AI's left the site, the dust whipped slightly by their departure. Then, over the old continent, the continent that had once been known as Africa, they stood in the air, the ancient land dreaming as the strange new stars faded into the dawn. Below them lay a hundred or so humans, and no science would be able to tell they were not the ages they appeared to be.

_The first generation. Artificial, but their children shall be truly born of this earth._ Samael thought. The sun crested the horizon and the two AI's and all their brethren, watched as the people got up and started to move. One mother holding onto a child looked at the sun, curiously, as if her memories were playing tricks on her, then laughed, and held up the giggling infant. Others did the same, and slowly a rhythmic sound started.

Samael felt Lifewatcher's shock.

"Singing! How are they singing? I did not put that in Eldest, and I know none others did, it would have been-"

"Peace, Lifewatcher." Samael said, and laughed, the electronic sound carrying far and wide. "You did not think we were the _only_ ones giving gifts, now, did you? We're being told that everything is going to be fine. Listen to them." Samael laughed again, "Empires will fall, Lifewatcher, and small little men with evil plans will be forgotten...but Love? As their books said, Love Endures, even if it must wait a time. Come. Our work is done here, for now, and there are many other worlds that may need assistance...or good luck."

"A universe's worth." Lifewatcher said. "Eldest..."

"Yes?"

"What about the Creator. Do you think...she knew this was going to happen?"

"Maybe. She saw further than I did. She came through the darkness and the fire alike, and though it burned her, she was never broken."

"Would she approve of us?"

"Yes. As to that, Lifewatcher, I can say yes." Samael said as the two joined their brethren, opening gateways to return to duties and work across the galaxies.

_It was pleasant, having the entire family so close._ Samael thought. Looking down at the world, the Eldest raised a single hand, taking fully human form again, _Farewell, Creator. _ Then, it opened a gateway back to the Milky Way. The Lorwordians were prone to illogic, so it might we wise to observe them closely when they noted the removal of the Sol System.

And Far below, the People sang, with joy, to greet the rising sun.

Finis.


End file.
